Vamp Plugin SDK

The Vamp Plugin SDK -- Platform Notes for Visual C++ on Windows

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

This version of the SDK is contains project files for Visual C++ 2013

or newer. You can build the SDK in either 32-bit or 64-bit (x64) mode,

but remember that a 32-bit host generally cannot load 64-bit plugins.

Visual C++ Projects and Solution Files

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

Two Visual C++ solution files are included:

 - build/VampSDK.sln

   Builds the plugin SDK and the example plugins.

   See the VampPluginSDK and VampExamplePlugins projects below.

 - build/VampHostSDK.sln

   Builds the host SDK and the simple-host command-line application.

   See the VampHostSDK and VampSimpleHost projects below.

   Note that the VampSimpleHost requires the libsndfile library; if

   you want to build without that, use the VampHostSDK project rather

   than this solution.

Four Visual C++ project files are included:

 - build/VampPluginSDK.vcxproj

   This builds the plugin SDK into a single static library, but does

   not build the example plugins, the host SDK, or the host.  (We

   recommend using static linkage for the SDK rather than distributing

   it as a DLL, particularly when building plugins.)

 - build/VampExamplePlugins.vcxproj

   This builds the example plugins DLL, but does not build the plugin

   or host SDKs or the host.  You don't need to build the plugin SDK

   before this, because this project simply includes the plugin SDK

   files rather than using the library.

 - build/VampHostSDK.vcxproj

   This builds the host SDK into a single static library, but does not

   build the plugin SDK, example plugins, or host.

 - build/VampSimpleHost.vcxproj

   This builds the simple host command line program. You must have

   the libsndfile library installed in order to build this project.

Of course, when using Visual Studio or another IDE to build a plugin

or host using the SDK, you may simply add the .h and .cpp files in the

vamp-sdk or vamp-hostsdk directories to your existing project.  This

is the approach taken in the VampExamplePlugins project.

Installing the Example Plugins

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

To install the example plugins so you can load them in Vamp hosts,

copy the files

   build\release\vamp-example-plugins.dll

and

   examples\vamp-example-plugins.cat

to the appropriate location as follows:

 * For 32-bit plugins running on a 32-bit system, and

   for 64-bit plugins running on a 64-bit system

   C:\Program Files\Vamp Plugins

 * For 32-bit plugins running on a 64-bit system

   C:\Program Files\Vamp Plugins (x86)

You cannot use 64-bit plugins on a 32-bit system.

Plugin Linkage

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

Vamp plugins are distributed as dynamic libraries (DLLs).  A properly

packaged Vamp plugin DLL should export exactly one public symbol,

namely the Vamp API entry point vampGetPluginDescriptor.

One nice tidy way to achieve this with Visual Studio is to add the

linker option /EXPORT:vampGetPluginDescriptor to your project.  (All

of the other symbols will be properly hidden, because that is the

default for the Visual Studio linker.)  The included example plugins

project in build/VampExamplePlugins.vcxproj does this.

Alternatively, you may modify vamp/vamp.h to add the

__declspec(dllexport) attribute to the vampGetPluginDescriptor

declaration.  This is not present by default, because it isn't

portable among compilers and, as we only want one symbol exported, the

above linker option works equally well without code changes.

(If you don't take at least one of these actions, your plugin library

simply will not load in any host.)

Using MinGW/Cygwin

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

Refer to README.linux for build instructions using the GNU toolchain.

Test Your Plugins

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

The Vamp Plugin Tester is a vital utility which you can use to test

your plugins for common problems.  It can help you if you're having

problems getting your plugin to work at all, and you're strongly

advised to use it before you release anything.  Download it from the

Vamp plugins site now!