OF addon allows you to serve any variables you want (bool, float, int, enum, string, ofColor) on the network, so that you can modify them remotely. Uses server client architecture, where your app is the server. It communicates both ways; you can modify your project's variables from the client, but you can also pull your app's variable values from the client; this way you can track values that evolve programatically.
Watch a quick Intro Video.
- Edit & Track variables remotely through UDP/OSC (bool, int, float, string, Enum, ofColor).
- Client provieds a native OSX interface, with different visualization sizes.
- Alternative mutliplatform (iOS/win) client built on top of ofxUI (with less features for now)
- Allows to save/load your variable states across app launches.
- MIDI and Joystick controller bindings. Bind any parameter to any MIDI controller knob/slider or HID Joystick.
- Parameter values are saved in your app's data folder, in xml format.
- Allows creation/deletion of Presets, variable states that you can switch from and to quickly.
- Presets can be created globally (saving all paramater values at once), or for a subset of params (param group).
- Easily create Parameter Groups, and access them through keyboard shortcuts from the OSX Client.
- Colorize your variables to visually group them in the OSX client.
- Realtime Filter your params by name to find things quickly.
- Automatic discovery of servers in the network; easily control multiple apps from one Client interface.
- Press "tab" your app (ofxRemoteUIServer) to see/edit your params from inside your OF app, allows you to do quick clientless edits.
- Event notifications in both OSX client (through growl) and on your OF app.
- You can always restore your parameters to the "previous launch" state, or to the default values.
- Log remotely - ofxRemoteUIServer allows you to log messages to you client with OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_LOG(); which accepts printf-like formatted writing.
- ofxRemoteUI can be used outside OF in any C++ project, and in Processing thx to @kritzikratzi
- Easy to use C++ Macros hide complexity away, very easy to plug into any existing project.
Works in OpenFrameworks, but also in plain C++ projects.
There's also a feature limited version of the Server for Processing, made by @kritzikratzi! See here.
I know there's tons of very good UI's already, but one thing that bothers me about most of them is how by using them, your are affecting your framerates quite a lot. That's the main reason that made me build ofxRemoteUI. Being quite comfy in OSX development, I chose to make a full-featured native OSX client; although clients for other platforms could be developed as well, using the underlying ofxRemoteUIClient class.
It's OSC based, and it includes a native OSX Client. The Native OSX Client allows param colorization for better clarity, and live param filtering. It also supports the grouping of params into categories, for easy access. There's automatic keyboard shortcuts to do so.
It can also be set to store the current values when quitting the app (or whenever its convenient), so that you can carry on where you left off last time you used it. It does so by saving a file called "ofxRemoteUISettings.xml" in your data folder. It uses ofxXmlSettings to store everything.
You can also create and delete presets, which are parameter states for your app. Presets are stored with your OF app, inside an "ofxRemoteUIPresets" folder, in your data folder. This makes it easy to check in your presets with your source code. Whenever you like the current config, you can make a preset to keep it around. You can also delete presets.
ofxRemoteUI uses Macros + the singleton pattern to make it very easy to share any variable you decide to edit remotely, from any class of your project.
The OSX client also allows to copy all the current params as plain text. You can also paste them back after editing them! Thx to @kritzikratzi for this idea!
To use it outside of OpenFrameworks, you can see how the example-noOF is setup.
float x;
int y;
ofColor color;
void setup(){
OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_SETUP(); //start server
//Expose x and y vars to the server, providing a valid slider range
OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_SHARE_PARAM(x, 0, ofGetWidth());
OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_SHARE_PARAM(y, 0, ofGetHeight());
//share the color var
OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_SHARE_COLOR_PARAM(color);
//load values from XML, as they were last saved (if they were)
OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_LOAD_FROM_XML();
}
Use the supplied OSX Client to view and edit your shared parameters.
The ofxRemoteUI OSX client allows to bind any midi control / joystick axis / button to any of your params. To do so, do this:
- Click on a param name on the main Window. It will start blinking.
- roate/push/press your external device control (joystick, gamepad button, midi slider, knob, etc).
- Done! You can now control that param from your device.
You can Save/Load/Edit/Clear your midi bindings from the "MIDI Bindings" window.
For now, only ints, floats, enums, bools and colors can be controlled from a midi controller. MIDI Sliders/ Knobs can be binded to floats, ints, enums, bools and colors. For ints, floats and enums, the mapping is obvious; for bools, the lower half of a slider/knob sets the param to false, the upper half to true. For colors, the slider shifts the hue of the color parameter.
Bools can also be binded to "piano keys"; params being set to true for as long as a key is held down.
Bindings are saved when the app is quit. You can also doubleclick any .midiBind file form the finder to load your previously saved bindings. There is a "bindings" window that allows you to delete particular bindings.
"Restore to initial XML Values" sets alls params to whatever values they had at server app launch.
"Restore to Default Values" sets alls params to whatever values the shared variable had before sharing it with OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_SHARE_PARAM().
Enums must be consecutive so that each enum item is +1 the previous one for them to work. This is usually the default behavior if you don't set specific values when defining your enums.
When loading a preset, it might be that the preset doesn't specify values for all your current params (bc it's an older preset). If so, the params whose values haven't been modified by the preset will show a small warning sign for a few seconds.
Automatic discovery relies on each server advertising itself (its hostname, app name and port) on port 25748 over OSC.
OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_SETUP() assigns a random port the first time the app is launched, and it uses that same port on successive launches. You can also manually specify a port by supplying it OFX_REMOTEUI_SERVER_SETUP(10000);
ofxRemoteUIServer listens for the keyDown event, and if "tab" is pressed, it displays all your parameters on screen.
ofxRemoteUI is made available under the MIT license.
The OSX Client uses the vvMidi frameworks to handle MIDI devices more easily. VVMidi uses a LGPL license.
The OSX Client's HID capabilities come mostly from @jotapeh.
ofxRemoteUI bundles ofxXmlSettings and ofxOSC, taken from OpenFrameworks.