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https://github.com/bgribble/mfp

Music For Programmers, a graphical patching language
https://github.com/bgribble/mfp

jack midi music puredata python

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Music For Programmers, a graphical patching language

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README 

        
BUILDING AND INSTALLING MFP

===================================



Post version 0.07, 2024-01-15



TL;DR

---------------------



   $ ./waf configure --python=python3 --virtualenv --prefix ~/mfpvirt build install install_deps

     [...]

   $ . ~/mfpvirt/bin/activate

   (mfpvirt)$ mfp -v



THINGS TO KNOW

---------------------



OS platform: I have only tested MFP on 32-bit (raspi) and 64-bit

Linux.



python: MFP requires Python 3.x at this time.



waf: MFP uses 'waf', which you can think of as a replacement for

autotools and make.  You do not need to install waf; the correct

version is supplied in the MFP source tree.  That's the way waf

is designed to work; more information can be found at

https://code.google.com/p/waf/.  MFP's "Makefile" or

"configure.in" equivalent is the file "wscript", which is a plain

Python file.  The entry points used by waf are the functions

"configure" and "build", defined near the bottom of the file.



virtualenv: At this phase of MFP's development you should

probably build it in a "virtualenv" sandbox.  The waf scripts

support this, but you have to install the "virtualenv" tool

(packaged as 'python-virtualenv' on Debian and Ubuntu). Then you

configure with --virtualenv as in the TL;DR above and the build

will go into the virtual environment.  When you specify

--virtualenv, the install prefix (--prefix) is the path to the

virtual environment, so you shouldn't let this default to

/usr/local.



setuptools: The build process depends on Python setuptools.  If

you have virtualenv installed, you have setuptools already, but

if you aren't using virtualenv you may need to install setuptools

separately.  It's packaged as "python-setuptools" on Debian and

Ubuntu.



pip:  The modern replacement for "easy_install" to install Python

packages is called pip.  If (1) you are using Debian or Ubuntu, (2)

you do not want to use a --virtualenv install, and (3) you want to use

the './waf install_deps' feature to install some Python dependencies,

you need the Debian package 'python-pip', or your distro's equivalent,

installed.



gcc: The C components of mfp (mfpdsp, pluginfo, and testext) are

straightforward C but include some c99-isms, mainly due to LV2.  I

have been using versions from gcc-4.8.3 to 9.3.0 with no trouble.



CONFIGURING

-----------------------



The basic form:



    $ ./waf configure [options]



A full list of options is shown by ./waf --help, under

"Configuration options".  --virtualenv is the only "custom"

option.



LIBRARIES

-----------------------



The "mfpdsp" C library/program needs a few C libraries with their

development headers and pkg-config files installed:



 * ladspa.h       (LADSPA plugins)

 * glib-2.0       (GLib/GObject)

 * json-glib-2.0  (JSON serializing/deserializing)

 * serd-0         (LV2 TTL parsing)

 * jack           (duh)

 * liblo          (OSC library, needed by pyliblo)

 * lv2 headers    (LV2 load/save)



You'll get errors in the "./waf configure" process if these aren't installed.



Python runtime dependencies are checked for in "configure" and many of

them can be automagically installed by "./waf install_deps" if you

wish.



install_deps must be run after "./waf install".  If you

are using a virtualenv, the installed Python libraries will also

be installed into the virtualenv.



Note that the Python language bindings for Gtk+/GLib and Clutter libraries

CANNOT be automatically installed by this build process.  You need to

install your OS package manager's package for the "GIR" (GObject

Introspection Repository) data for Clutter, Glib, Gtk+, Gdk,

GtkClutter, and Pango, and the Python infrastructure to use that data.

In Debian, these are packaged as:



    gir1.2-clutter-1.0

    gir1.2-gtkclutter-1.0

    gir1.2-pango-1.0

    gir1.2-glib-2.0

    gir1.2-gtk-3.0

    python-gi



BUILDING

-----------------------



    $ ./waf build



This will build the project into ./wafbuild (or other directory as

specified to "configure").  There may be some temporary stuff placed

into ./build/ and ./dist/ by setuptools, so I wouldn't use those as

names for the waf build directory.



INSTALLING

--------------------------



    $ ./waf install



The installation root defaults to /usr/local and can be modified

by passing in the --prefix argument to "./waf configure".



If you get errors on the install step to the effect of os.symlink

failing to make a link because the file already exists -- see GitHub

issue #220 and please add a comment indicating your Linux distribution

and that you are having this problem.



Note that the instances of #220 I have seen are failing at the

very tail end of the install process, and are trying to install

files that are already there... which means that you can probably

ignore this error.  Try activating the virtualenv and running

mfp.  If it launches, you are good to go.



DESKTOP FILE

--------------------------



The template desktop file `mfp.desktop` will be populated with

paths and installed to ${PREFIX}/share/mfp/mfp.desktop. You will

need to copy it to wherever such things go on your system. 



The icon path is what I needed to get icons working on my Gnome

system. You may need to change it. If you need to do something

manual, the actual icon image is the one in mfp.svg. I can't

express how crabby I am about how messed up icons are on the

Linux desktop. 



For what it's worth, on my system the desktop file should be

~/.local/share/applications/mfp.desktop



RUNNING TESTS

--------------------------



There are some tests, though not as many as I would like.  What's

there basically comes in two flavors, all of which can be run

with various incantations of the `nosetests` test runner:



 * Python test cases in mfp/test: run with plain `nosetests -v mfp/test/`



 * C test cases in mfpdsp/test_*: run with the `testext` plugin

   to nosetests, `nosetests -v --with-testext --exe wafbuild/libmfpdsp.so`



Note on nosetests: I started using it because, 12+ years ago, it

was the best test runner. Now other tools like pytest have won

more mindshare. I spent some effort on the plugins to run C tests

for mfpdsp so I am sticking with nosetests.



HOWEVER, the original nosetests is abandoned and doesn't work

with current Python versions, and the "new" version of nosetests

(nose2) changed the way plugins worked, and doesn't support the

--exe option needed to point nose to the libmfpdsp.so file. So I

switched over to "pynose", which is a fork of the original

nosetests, just updated to work with contemporary Python. It gets

installed by install_deps.