One-screen DX7 programmer

[dronus]

I have work in progress to create a 1920x1080 fullscreen DX7 programmer out of the volca-fm part, so it is possible to handle the DX7 from one touchscreen without scrolling, resembling the costly hardware programmers as good as possible.

See here: https://github.com/dronus/synthmata.github.io/tree/dx7_programmer_only

Question is if that could / should be merged to synthmata.github.io some day.

Some caveats: -I removed all non volca-fm relating tools. Either I will merge the code into synthmata.github.io again, or this repositiory gets split up into it's subprojects, as there is not soo much code sharing between the different tools. -The synthmata brandig is almost completely lost, as the large header of the layout won't fit well into a crowded screen. -Keeping the old layout and the new one switchable may be possible, but not easy as the changes can't be done completely by CSS rules and chages to index.html are made.

So question is if it would merge into synthmata.github.io after adapting it again, or should be kept as seperate project.

[synthmata]

There is another fork going on with a bunch of features being added to the UI without breaking Volca support, there's a demo of it here: https://pbpraha.github.io/

Does this get you where you want to be from a UI perspective? (Obviously it's not incorporating your other DX7 patches yet).

@pbpraha might want to get in on this discussion as I don't want people to needlessly make work for themselves if we're working towards a common goal.

[pbpraha]

@synthmata @dronus

Hi guys, I'd love to contribute and collaborate on this :)

Warning though, I'm a UX guy with pretty much zero understanding (other than what Mr-G explained to me) about what this UI controls, so you may have to explain the basics to me if we get too fancy ;)

Also, the version at https://pbpraha.github.io/ is not the exact same source as the repo I pulled from here. (I'm kinda new to git and can't make https://pbpraha.github.io/ point to the pulled repo :/), so maybe consider https://pbpraha.github.io/ to be a playground for new ideas ?

Anyhow, comments and suggestions welcome :)

PB

[dronus]

I don't know about this. But the UI looks very good, with the oldschool DX7 visual theme.

I will try this out and most likely discontinue my branch.

My branch doesn't brake Volca support, it just removes the other independent tools on the synthmata.io page.

[dronus]

I tried this, there is one file missing in the repository (https://pbpraha.github.io/script/dx7lfodisplay.js) I had to scrape from the live demo page, to get it working. Please add it.

Four small things: -There is almost always a vertical scrollbar on my machine, even if the UI is scaled to fit the browser. -The OPERATOR MODE switches could be toggle buttons, as there are only two options. -The RANDOMIZER could maybe be integrated into the SETUP column to save screen space. -The original DX7 actually sports a dark brown color, not grey - to be very picky. Maybe @pbpraha could activate the issues section, to report on this UI style there?

Otherwise, it seems to work well, and looks very nice!

It also merges well with my new patches to receive original DX7 sysex.

[pbpraha]

@dronus

Hi mate :)

Thanks for the feedback :) I've added the missing lfo script to the repository - sorry that I missed that one :/

re: scroll bar, I got this macos "hide the scroll bar" thing going on here, so never saw it. I can set the body css overflow property to hidden, that should solve this issue (although you can never then scroll about if the UI is > screen size)

re: OPERATOR MODE switches, agreed, they could be checkbox toggles - providing that i can pass a variable into the css :before and :after content, right now they are hardcoded to ON and OFF, so not appropriate for RATIO and FIXED - i'll revisit this i think :)

re: RANDOMIZER - I think i can live where it is for now, it's rather narrow and there's room below to for another control if one needs to be added later. But feel free to mess with the layout as you like :)

re: DX7 color - I don't think I've never seen one IRL - i just assumed it was grey ;) I'll go recheck the source images I used, see if i can get it closer :)

I'll activate the issues section - I didn't know it was a thing, sorry.

[pbpraha]

@dronus

I pushed some changes to https://github.com/pbpraha/pbpraha.github.io. as discussed above. Let me know about the brown color ;)

Also, https://github.com/pbpraha/pbpraha.github.io is now accepting issues ... apparently >.<

[dronus]

Very cool!

I wonder if it was a good decieision to split of from synthmata.io, this way developments of synthmata.io can't be joined easily. I made the same mistake by myself I think.

For me, looking for an affordable DX7 interface, this looks quite promising. I will do some tests in the following days and give feedback.

[pbpraha]

Hi @dronus

Thanks :)

I've been working on a fork, parts of which could be merged back in to the master branch, at the discretion of @synthmata ;) The only reason it's hosted at https://github.com/pbpraha/pbpraha.github.io is because i was too dumb to read the github docs properly - so I read them again and you can now instead access the app/page here : https://pbpraha.github.io/synthmata.github.io/volca-fm/ which points to the my real fork of this project :)

So not a split as such, and I've not intentionally removed anything that @synthmata has done, I'm not at all qualified to be messing with the midi code ;) ... but ok, maybe I removed a warning dialog box or two >.<

I may have introduced some bugs. Hopefully these will be spotted (and fixed) should this work be incorporated back into the master branch.

Either way, I'm glad you like the interface now :) I hope the new skin might make @synthmata's idea a bit more accessible to people like my mate Glenn :)