Please disable AdBlock. CAN is an ad-supported site that takes hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to sustain.

SuperCollider GUI Design Project [News, Sound]

The SuperCollider development community invites graphic designers and UI specialists to create a unique and elegant look for its GUI controls (buttons, sliders, knobs, etc.)  Visual coherency of the interface elements is essential for making a good first impression for any Open Source project and for day to day work an elegant and uniform look makes for an inspiring environment.

SuperCollider is a programming language and development environment for real-time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition.  Originally released in 1996, it is now a widely used open source project that runs on Mac, Linux, Windows, iOS and Android.  It is renowned for its audio quality, flexibility and efficiency.  It is widely used by composers, musicians, improvisers and media artists as well as by researchers. It is taught in many universities, and is used in numerous research projects, galleries, concerts and clubs.

However it must be admitted that SuperCollider does not have the sexiest knobs.

Current State of GUI

So far SuperCollider has a reputation for being primarily a text based language without a substantial GUI, and there have been many interesting works done that treat code as an art-form in itself and revel in the use of pure code as an interface.

There does exist a full compliment of standard GUI controls (buttons, sliders, knobs, etc.), but these lack the finesse and visual appeal that inspire artists. GUI interfaces can be written in SuperCollider code to create standard controls (knobs, buttons, faders etc.) and on a custom canvas (like Processing, HTML5 Canvas etc). These interfaces are used in building small applications, performance instruments, for use in installations, and for creating experimental software that are works of art in themselves. There also exist larger applications and specialized libraries that automatically compose GUIs.

The environment has up until now used GUI controls that required separate implementations for different OS, so now a true cross platform GUI is being constructed using the Qt (pronounced “Qute”) application framework.  The implementation will give it a uniform look across all platforms (no native widgets) and will give SuperCollider an instantly recognized and distinctive look.

Call for Designs

For this new implementation the development community invites graphic designers and UI specialists to submit designs for the standard elements. The full set of elements that are needed can be seen on this screenshot: GUI ELEMENTS. View the SuperCollider code to generate these elements. Besides the elements in the screenshot, a check box, a radio button and a tabbed view should also be provided.

Entries to this call should be submitted to the SuperCollider GUI Flicker group where members of the SuperCollider community will be able to view and discuss the pros and cons of the design.  The development community also invites any interested party to make contact via supercollidergui@gmail.com and welcomes advice regarding the project from anyone experienced with designing a complete and coherent GUI.

While the designer is invited to be free and create, a few guidelines have been established: SuperCollider GUI Design Guidelines

License: since SuperCollider is open-source (GPL) software, the designs will need to be licensed accordingly – GPL v2 or later.

SuperCollider GUI Design Project

GeoGraphy: GUI by vanderaalle

scope-strips-12 by Stephan Wittwer

Score follower for Rumentarium by vanderaalle

Related Posts

Posted on: 01/11/2010

Posted in: c++, News, Sound

Post tags:

  • http://twitter.com/dhb7 davidhbigelow

    I honestly expected something like all 3D and super amazing – and I arrived and saw something that looks like a Physics Geek that is 50-days into a programming Objective-C in 30-days Book…

  • noloko

    ha =)

  • rbgtoffolo

    Cool!!!!
    consider include some classes to musical notation!!!

  • Dave

    Do you intend to have additional gui functionality that would easily enable Max/Pd-like graphical programming (i.e. assemble basic SC elements into blocks that can have their graphical comesouttas graphically plugged into each others’ goesintas? (like convert SC text code into graphical programming?) Or is this more expected to be a prettyfication of the standard already existing gui widgets to make more eyecandyfied custom guis that operate our behind the scenes good old challenging text-programmed custom SC applications? If the former, there will have to be some hard thinking about synth v. language processing and representation, and figuring out what’s the difference between SC/gui v. Max/Pd. If the latter, who’s the expected or target user base? Is there a hope to be able to wrap complete applications in this gui so as to release them intact to the outside world of DAWs and softsynths and other electronic music toolsets?
    I’m a relative newcomer to SC, a hobbyist electronic musician, not an academic or artist or professional composer. Although I’m not very visual, I think more in symbols and I like text-based programming, I suspect that a visualization of the inner workings of an SC application under construction might be a great way to build understanding and avoid problems. I do think this would be a major undertaking though. A comprehensive index to the documentation would be easier and more immediately valuable.