Patch Library Webapp

mars 2014-09-12 17:33:47 UTC #1

We've been working away for a while on a much improved patch library that we hope will show off the patches and encourage creativity.

You can find a development snapshot here, pls have a little click-around:
http://hoxtonowl.com/wp-content/uploads/OwlServer/client/stripped.html

We'd love to get your feedback on this - what works well, what doesn't, how it navigates et c.

Our plan is to develop this into a fully fledged, fully integrated web app, connecting the library, community and hardware. But it's a big undertaking, and we want to make sure we're on the right track!

The page is all dynamic HTML5 and JS/JQuery/Knockout, source is here:

If you've got web development skillz and would like to help then let us know.

sgissinger 2014-09-24 22:55:37 UTC #2

Yeah, that's interesting.
I just bought a WP8.1 Nokia 635 and it will be really cool to control the Owl with it.

What kind of help do you need ?

mars 2014-09-27 21:00:59 UTC #3

Can you run Chrome on it?
If you can, try enabling Web MIDI API
(go to chrome://flags/#enable-web-midi, enable it, and restart Chrome)
If not, you can get the same functionality by installing the Jazz-Plugin from http://jazz-soft.net/

Then plug in the OWL with a USB OTG cable and open up this test page:
http://hoxtonowl.com/wp-content/uploads/OwlServer/index.html

When it works, it gives you bare-bones access to the most common OwlNest features. This is something we want to develop and integrate into a full-fledged webapp.
One problem here is that Web MIDI API is not well supported in browsers yet. It works really well in Chrome on Linux, but that's about it! It's a draft W3C spec, and hopefully widespread adoption is not far away.

We'd also like to create an online compiler, an in-browser code editor (probably based on Github's Atom project), and dynamic on-device patch loading.

What kind of help do you need ?

Web development, including backend and frontend coding (Node.js/Javascript/HTML5), Makefile hacking (for online compiler), testing, bug tracking

achilles_charmpilas 2014-10-04 11:57:47 UTC #4

Hi,

I could probably work on the online editor, got a bit of experience around that area.
Any pointers / requirements / etc?

mars 2014-10-04 20:45:10 UTC #5

Awesome!

The two projects I've looked at which I think might be suitable are:
http://ace.c9.io/ the Cloud9 IDE editor, and
https://atom.io/ the new Github editor which is JS and HTML based, but I'm not sure if it can be browser hosted.

There's also the Eclipse Orion
http://www.eclipse.org/orion/
live coding sites like CodePen
http://codepen.io/
and the Spark Core IDE
http://docs.spark.io/build/

I'm not sure which is most suitable. Whatever we go with should have an open source license, be under active development, and have a modern HTML5 / Javascript implementation. It must have syntax highlighting of C/C++ and be extensible to support e.g. Faust. Big plus if it is mobile and tablet friendly.
And if you know any other projects you think might fit, let us know!

achilles_charmpilas 2014-10-06 13:09:35 UTC #6

Cool I'll have a look around. Last time I did a web-based code editor it was with edit_area.js, but that was a few years ago. I'll see what's available now. Shall we move this discussion to github?

achilles_charmpilas 2014-10-06 14:12:09 UTC #7

actually ace looks great, I'll give that a spin.

mars 2014-10-07 13:26:40 UTC #8

ok cool - edit_area could be a fallback option.

And yes, let's move the patch editor discussion to github:

sgissinger 2014-10-07 13:42:03 UTC #9

Unfortunately Google don't port its applications to Microsoft Windows Phone.
I'll give it a try with IE11 on the phone but I'm pessimistic

IE do not, generally, implement Draft specifications...as we would like it to implement running standards :-p.

If I fail in doing it with IE, I'll take a look to Win8.1 AppStore development, if you're ok with it.
Best

mars 2014-10-08 13:07:07 UTC #10

@sgissinger Is it Win8, not WinRT? In that case Juce should be able to generate a build target. Fancy doing a mobile version of the OwlNest? Minus dfu-loader.

I think there are plans to support WinRT in Juce as well, but don't know when.

sgissinger 2014-10-08 16:47:37 UTC #11

I was thinking about using a .NET MIDI Library to mimic what the website thru USB OTG with an App.
Don't know if what is possible, will see.

But Microsoft made recently on VS2013 a type of project named Universal App : http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/dn609832.aspx

It should allow to create an App for every Win8 family with only one code.

sgissinger 2014-10-08 23:00:08 UTC #12

Aïe Caramba !!!
Current Windows Phone 8.1 version doesn't support USB OTG devices.
It may come at the beginning of year 2015 with an update that has been released on Developer Preview yesterday (Windows Phone 8.1 GRD2 or Update 2).

I'll try to register for this Developer Preview.
I'm already trying to register my phone as a developer device for debug and test purpose.

mars 2014-10-09 15:24:49 UTC #13

@sgissinger keep us posted!