Suil

Suil is a library for loading and wrapping LV2 plugin UIs.

With Suil, a host written in one supported toolkit can embed a plugin UI written in another. Suil insulates hosts from toolkit libraries used by plugin UIs. For example, a Gtk host can embed a Qt UI without linking against Qt at compile time.

Suil also handles the embedding of native platform UIs (which are recommended) in common toolkits, for example embedding an X11 UI in a Gtk host.

Overview

The complete API is declared in suil.h:

#include <suil/suil.h>

API Reference

This section contains the generated documentation for all symbols in the public API.

Suil

SuilArg

enum SuilArg

Initialization argument.

enumerator SUIL_ARG_NONE

SuilController

typedef void *SuilController

UI controller.

This is an opaque pointer passed by the user which is passed to the various UI control functions (e.g. SuilPortWriteFunc). It is typically used to pass a pointer to some controller object the host uses to communicate with plugins.

SuilHandle

typedef void *SuilHandle

Opaque pointer to a UI handle.

SuilHost

typedef struct SuilHostImpl SuilHost

UI host descriptor.

This contains the various functions that a plugin UI may use to communicate with the plugin. It is passed to suil_instance_new() to provide these functions to the UI.

SuilInstance

typedef struct SuilInstanceImpl SuilInstance

An instance of an LV2 plugin UI.

SuilPortIndexFunc

typedef uint32_t (*SuilPortIndexFunc)(SuilController controller, const char *port_symbol)

Function to return the index for a port by symbol.

SuilPortSubscribeFunc

typedef uint32_t (*SuilPortSubscribeFunc)(SuilController controller, uint32_t port_index, uint32_t protocol, const LV2_Feature *const *features)

Function to subscribe to notifications for a port.

SuilPortUnsubscribeFunc

typedef uint32_t (*SuilPortUnsubscribeFunc)(SuilController controller, uint32_t port_index, uint32_t protocol, const LV2_Feature *const *features)

Function to unsubscribe from notifications for a port.

SuilPortWriteFunc

typedef void (*SuilPortWriteFunc)(SuilController controller, uint32_t port_index, uint32_t buffer_size, uint32_t protocol, void const *buffer)

Function to write/send a value to a port.

SuilTouchFunc

typedef void (*SuilTouchFunc)(SuilController controller, uint32_t port_index, bool grabbed)

Function called when a control is grabbed or released.

SuilWidget

typedef void *SuilWidget

Opaque pointer to a UI widget.

suil_host_free

void suil_host_free(SuilHost *host)

Free host.

suil_host_new

SuilHost *suil_host_new(SuilPortWriteFunc write_func, SuilPortIndexFunc index_func, SuilPortSubscribeFunc subscribe_func, SuilPortUnsubscribeFunc unsubscribe_func)

Create a new UI host descriptor.

Parameters

  • write_func – Function to send a value to a plugin port.

  • index_func – Function to get the index for a port by symbol.

  • subscribe_func – Function to subscribe to port updates.

  • unsubscribe_func – Function to unsubscribe from port updates.

suil_host_set_touch_func

void suil_host_set_touch_func(SuilHost *host, SuilTouchFunc touch_func)

Set a touch function for a host descriptor.

Note this function will only be called if the UI supports it.

suil_init

void suil_init(int *argc, char ***argv, SuilArg key, ...)

Initialize suil.

This function should be called as early as possible, before any other GUI toolkit functions. The variable argument list is a sequence of SuilArg keys and corresponding value pairs for passing any necessary platform-specific information. It must be terminated with SUIL_ARG_NONE.

suil_instance_extension_data

const void *suil_instance_extension_data(SuilInstance *instance, const char *uri)

Return a data structure defined by some LV2 extension URI.

suil_instance_free

void suil_instance_free(SuilInstance *instance)

Free a plugin UI instance.

The caller must ensure all references to the UI have been dropped before calling this function (e.g. it has been removed from its parent).

suil_instance_get_handle

SuilHandle suil_instance_get_handle(SuilInstance *instance)

Get the handle for a UI instance.

Returns the handle to the UI instance. The returned handle has opaque type to insulate the Suil API from LV2 extensions, but in pactice it is currently of type LV2UI_Handle. This should not normally be needed.

The returned handle is shared and must not be deleted.

suil_instance_get_widget

SuilWidget suil_instance_get_widget(SuilInstance *instance)

Get the widget for a UI instance.

Returns an opaque pointer to a widget, the type of which matches the container_type_uri parameter of suil_instance_new(). Note this may be a wrapper widget created by Suil, and not necessarily the widget directly implemented by the UI.

suil_instance_new

SuilInstance *suil_instance_new(SuilHost *host, SuilController controller, const char *container_type_uri, const char *plugin_uri, const char *ui_uri, const char *ui_type_uri, const char *ui_bundle_path, const char *ui_binary_path, const LV2_Feature *const *features)

Instantiate a UI for an LV2 plugin.

This funcion may load a suil module to adapt the UI to the desired toolkit. Suil is configured at compile time to load modules from the appropriate place, but this can be changed at run-time via the environment variable SUIL_MODULE_DIR. This makes it possible to bundle suil with an application.

Note that some situations (Gtk in Qt, Windows in Gtk) require a parent container to be passed as a feature with URI LV2_UI__parent (http://lv2plug.in/ns/extensions/ui#ui) in order to work correctly. The data must point to a single child container of the host widget set.

Parameters

  • host – Host descriptor.

  • controller – Opaque host controller pointer.

  • container_type_uri – URI of the desired host container widget type.

  • plugin_uri – URI of the plugin to instantiate this UI for.

  • ui_uri – URI of the specifically desired UI.

  • ui_type_uri – URI of the actual UI widget type.

  • ui_bundle_path – Path of the UI bundle.

  • ui_binary_path – Path of the UI binary.

  • features – NULL-terminated array of supported features, or NULL.

Returns

A new UI instance, or NULL if instantiation failed.

suil_instance_port_event

void suil_instance_port_event(SuilInstance *instance, uint32_t port_index, uint32_t buffer_size, uint32_t format, const void *buffer)

Notify the UI about a change in a plugin port.

This function can be used to notify the UI about any port change, but in the simplest case is used to set the value of lv2:ControlPort ports. For simplicity, this is a special case where format is 0, buffer_size is 4, and buffer should point to a single float.

The buffer must be valid only for the duration of this call, the UI must not keep a reference to it.

Parameters

  • instance – UI instance.

  • port_index – Index of the port which has changed.

  • buffer_size – Size of buffer in bytes.

  • format – Format of buffer (mapped URI, or 0 for float).

  • buffer – Change data, e.g. the new port value.

suil_ui_supported

unsigned suil_ui_supported(const char *host_type_uri, const char *ui_type_uri)

Check if suil can wrap a UI type.

Parameters

  • host_type_uri – The URI of the desired widget type of the host, corresponding to the type_uri parameter of suil_instance_new().

  • ui_type_uri – The URI of the UI widget type.

Returns

0 if wrapping is unsupported, otherwise the quality of the wrapping where 1 is the highest quality (direct native embedding with no wrapping) and increasing values are of a progressively lower quality and/or stability.