Getting started with WDL in 2017

[weblordpepe]

Hi guys. I'm having trouble getting off the ground.

I need a bit of help getting this all straight, and understanding what old stuff to ignore.

My current understanding is this:
* Iplug is a cuckos framework for plugins & audio sockets/streams.
* WDL is a variety of useful stuff - and includes Iplug.
* WDL no longer includes iplug - a fork of WDL, WDL-OL proved more maintained.

This has really thrown me off. I accidentally downloaded WDL-OL, went through the procedure to install it, only to find the example Visual Studio projects are ancient and don't compile in Visual Studio 2015.

To be up to date and new, should I download Cuckos WDL, but then download the Iplug from WDL-OL?

Furthermore - how do I even get started making an audio plugin with WDL? Do I need to use WDL? Or just iplug?

Am I plagued to install Visual Studio 2003? Does everyone else do that?

I have Visual Studio Community 2015 and anticipate others will use even more recent Visual Studios in the future.

Whats the approach I should be taking? Are there any baby-toys examples for me to follow? Can someone perhaps show me their workflow? I'm dying to get started, but there's a bit too much forking and binary rot going on thats confusing me no end.

Heeelp <3

[olilarkin]

if you want to make plug-ins just download WDL-OL which contains WDL. The projects should work with visual studio 2015. will try and update it soon, probably with visual studio 2017 projects

[michaelwayneharwood]

I have been using this framework for less than a month, and would strongly suggest starting with either WDL OL or the Tale edition. I use Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017 with no issues.

Getting things setup can be a bit of work, and while there are a couple of undocumented gotchas here and there if you are comfortable in Visual Studio in general you should be ok.

[weblordpepe]

oh wow really? so this is the right way to go about things?

should i try and load up the projects, and sorta go through the errors & ask for help on here? I was trying to google things but i was a bit lost.

I'm kinda just wanting to get a relatively normal set up like one of you guys so I can get started.

[weblordpepe]

im sorta a bit lost on the GUI side of things.

can perhaps one of you guys tell me how you would make a GUI for a plugin that would work say on PC as a VST and on mac as an AU?

Like which framework do you use and how do you draw/design your GUI? i kinda feel like i need to hold hands with a grown up doing this kinda thing but once i get it ill get it.

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by weblordpepe

im sorta a bit lost on the GUI side of things.

can perhaps one of you guys tell me how you would make a GUI for a plugin that would work say on PC as a VST and on mac as an AU?

Like which framework do you use and how do you draw/design your GUI? i kinda feel like i need to hold hands with a grown up doing this kinda thing but once i get it ill get it.

IPlug/WDL has the needed stuff to do cross platform GUIs, it's in fact one of the biggest reasons you would use something like IPlug to begin with. There are no fancy GUI design facilities though. You need to "design" your GUIs by writing code. If you need things like bitmap graphics, you will need to use software like Photoshop or Gimp to create those.

[michaelwayneharwood]

What I would do if I were you is to get your development environment configured properly so that you are able to build the examples provided in the framework on both Windows and OSX first, and focus on building a single target (e.g. app, vst2, etc.) on both. This will help to work out the kinks and make life much easier for you as you learn the framework. In my opinion the example plugins are the place to start to learn how things work.

There are tutorials on the internet that will help in the "hold my hand" category such as Martin Finke's Making Audio Plugins, and searching this forum for specific questions or issues often will provide information to guide you in the right direction even if your specific query is not directly addressed. Oli Larken posted a short explanation of Common Pitfalls for WDL-OL as well.

Be aware that there are some features that are fully fleshed out for one plugin type that may not have the same features enabled in another. As an example MIDI support varies across the targets, and the native message box and file dialogs have some quirks that can be frustrating when cross compiling.

One thing to note - when posting here you are going to get the most benefit if you ask very specific questions and post enough of your code to provide context. The framework is laid out fairly logically, and a little digging into the classes and examples in combination with some experimentation will often times yield insight and answers quicker than posting a question.