/ofxParameterServer

Primary LanguageC++MIT LicenseMIT

ofxParameterServer

This addon provides a a straightforward way to control ofParameters from clients via OSC. The main goal is to be able to manipulate ofParameters remotely via platform-agnostic clients, with a minimum of setup on the server side. In the typical setup, the server is the ofApp you want to control remotely, and the client modifies the values of the ofParameters. A fully-featured client written in Flutter, [name here], is provided in a separate repository.

Compatibility

  • Tested on OF 0.11.x, but should work on 0.10.x.
  • Not compatible with 0.9.x and earlier.
  • Tested on Mac and Linux, but should work on Windows.

Usage

  1. Declare an ofxParameterServer.
  2. Declare an ofParameterGroup that will hold all of your parameters.
  3. On your app's setup(), call yourServerInstance.setup(yourOfParameterGroup).
  4. And that's it! Any changes that the client makes on the parameters in the ofParameterGroup should be reflected in your app.

Built-in types

ofxParameterServer comes with some built-in parameter types that it works with:

  • int
  • float
  • double
  • bool
  • std::string
  • ofFloatColor
  • ofParameterGroup
  • glm::vec2
  • glm::vec3
  • glm::vec4
  • ofRectangle
  • ofQuaternion
  • ofMatrix3x3
  • ofMatrix4x4

Custom types

Serving custom types is a two step process:

  1. Register the type using ofxParameterServer::addParameterType
  2. Make your custom type (de)serializable with ofToString. As an example, this is how OF (de)serializes) ofRectangle:
ostream& operator<<(ostream& os, const ofRectangle& rect){
	os << rect.position << ", " << rect.width << ", " << rect.height;
	return os;
}

istream& operator>>(istream& is, ofRectangle& rect){
	is >> rect.position;
	is.ignore(2);
	is >> rect.width;
	is.ignore(2);
	is >> rect.height;
	return is;
}

Thus, the general approach is:

inline std::ostream& operator<<(std::ostream& os, const customType& instance)
{
	os << [[some function that turns instance into a string]]
	return os;
}

inline std::istream& operator>>(std::istream& is, customType& instance)
{
  ... (get values from the stream and assign them to your instance)
	return is;
}

Be aware that the functions need to be declared at global scope, ofxParameterServer might not find them.