Expansion User Presets

[d.healey]

I'm still tinkering with custom floating tiles. I'm exploring the expansion system.

ExpansionHandler& exp = mc->getExpansionHandler();
std::cout << "NUM EXPANSIONS: " << exp.getNumExpansions() << std::endl;

The code compiles but always shows there are 0 expansions when it should show 1. Am I doing something wrong? And why are there almost no comments in your code :p How do you remember what everything does.

[Christoph Hart]

Most of the class / method names are pretty self-explanatory, if not then I can take a quick look at the implementation :)

If this method returns 0 you have probably not called ExpansionHandler.createAvailableExpansions() which scans the folder and adds an expansion per folder.

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart I did call that function, but then I changed some code and removed it again, so I probably screwed something in the meantime :) I'll re-add that function call and try again, thanks!

[d.healey]

Nope that didn't make a difference. Something fishy going on. This shows that it's definitely looking in the correct place and I checked and the test expansion folder is in there - I'm using the one from the example project (Backend Expansion Vol).

std::cout << "EXPANSION FOLDER: " << handler.getExpansionFolder().getFullPathName() << std::endl;

[d.healey]

Meh, I think I'll just stick with a customized preset browser. Seems simpler :)

[d.healey]

Turns out I still need this functionality even with a custom preset browser, so I'm persevering!

if (Helpers::isValidExpansion(f)) The ExpansionList isn't being populated because this function keeps returning false. Not sure why as it's finding the directory ok and I'm using the expansion from the example project. But I'll keep exploring.

[d.healey]

Aha, I found the problem HI_ENABLE_EXPANSION_EDITING!

[d.healey]

How can I get the standard preset browser to display the presets of a specific expansion? I tried presetBrowser->loadPresetDatabase(file) then rebuilding but no luck.

[Christoph Hart]

HI_ENABLE_EXPANSION_EDITING

Ah that one, it's the gate-keeper so that "normal" plugins will not be cluttered with all this expansion stuff.

Alright, small homework assignment in C++ coming in...

You need to somehow redirect the folder that the user preset browser is "listening" to - just like most things in HISE (and JUCE) it follows the listener paradigm). In order to do so, you need to register the preset browser to the expansion handler to be notified when an expansion is changed and then rebuild the preset list:

1. Inherit the PresetBrowser class from hise::ExpansionHandler::Listener
2. Register it to the global ExpansionHandler in the constructor of the preset browser (and deregister it in the destructor)
3. overload expansionLoaded() and set the rootFile to the user preset directory of the currently loaded expansion (currentExpansion->getSubDirectory(FileHandlerBase::UserPresets) is your friend
4. Call rebuildAllUserPresets() to recreate the preset structure.

Disclaimer: I am not sure this is enough, but just from looking at the source code it might work.

Make sure that it compiles with the HI_ENABLE_EXPANSION_EDITING flag disabled (you will need to ifdef your additions).

The master class is to make this a property of the floating tile (with the default being deactivated) so that you can turn it on and off depending on whether you want it or not...

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart Thanks for the detailed explanation. I shall get to work!

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart

It bloomin works!

The missing piece to get the preset browser columns to refresh properly

File cat = PresetBrowserColumn::getChildDirectory(rootFile, 2, 2);
File preset = PresetBrowserColumn::getChildDirectory(rootFile, 3, 3);
bankColumn->setNewRootDirectory(rootFile);
categoryColumn->setNewRootDirectory(cat);
presetColumn->setNewRootDirectory(preset);

Tomorrow I will tackle the ifdef part and see if I can make this thing accessible through the scripting API so I can get back to my beloved HISEScript.

I'm thinking the HISE_ENABLE_EXPANSIONS flag would be more appropriate than the expansion editing one, but tell me if you think otherwise.

[d.healey]

@d-healey said in Expansion User Presets:

and see if I can make this thing accessible through the scripting API so I can get back to my beloved HISEScript.

Well it turns out that was easy to do! But how do I get my new function to show up in the API collection in HISE?

[Christoph Hart]

I am using this batch script that runs doxygen over the scripting Cpp files and converts the XML output to a ValueTree that will be embedded into HISE.

It's only available for Windows (where I do the bulk of development) though

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart Shall I make a pull request once I've finished tinkering and tested everything? Then it will be picked up next time you run your script.

[d.healey]

Seems that Engine.getExpansionList(); doesn't work if callbacks are deferred, what is the reason for this?

[d.healey]

False alarm, it seems that it's just being weird and complaining sometimes when I open the project. If I can pin it down to something specific I shall let you know.

[Christoph Hart]

It might be possible that ExpansionHandler::createAvailableExpansions() is being executed after the deferred script execution.

What you could do is to add some logging code to this function as well as to the script function wrapper around the getNumExpansion() function to see in which order they are executed and if this varies if the scripting callback is busy with a complex onInit function (btw, I saw you using std::cout, but the JUCE way for logging stuff is the DBG macro).

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart Ok cool, I'll run some tests.

[d.healey]

Do expansion sample maps need to be loaded in a special way?

Inside my HISE project it seems to find them just fine but when I run the exported application I'm getting errors

WARNING: Not found: {EXP::Kazbek}duduk_staccato.xml
JUCE Assertion failure in ExternalFilePool.h:1124
JUCE Assertion failure in ModulatorSamplerData.cpp:762

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart said in Expansion User Presets:

It might be possible that ExpansionHandler::createAvailableExpansions() is being executed after the deferred script execution.

I did some simple tests and it seems that everything is fine, I also haven't noticed the problem in my project happening again so I think it was some mistake I was making.

Get list always seems to be called after create available :)

CREATE AVAILABLE EXPANSIONS
GET LIST OF EXPANSIONS
GET LIST OF EXPANSIONS
Resizing interface
Change scale factor
GET LIST OF EXPANSIONS