Exporting PlugData GUI to VST3

[bgworkroom]

Hello,

I'm working on a project in PlugData and I've created a custom GUI using the [popmenu] object. Everything works correctly inside PlugData, but when I export the project (especially as a VST3 plugin), the GUI is not included or does not appear as expected.

I have a couple of questions:

Is there currently a way to export a PlugData patch as a VST3 while preserving the custom GUI (including [popmenu] and other GUI objects)?
If this is not yet supported, is it planned for a future update?
Are there any recommended workarounds for creating a plugin with a functional custom GUI?

I'd appreciate any information about the current limitations and the roadmap regarding GUI export for VST3 plugins.

Thank you for your work on PlugData!

[dromer]

Short answer: no

Long answer: we are working on a feature that can export basic control and UI elements. You can see an example implementation here: https://github.com/Wasted-Audio/pdvg-example-plugin

It will only be possible to assign very specific controls and some other elements: https://github.com/Wasted-Audio/PDVG#objects

[popmenu] is not supported and will not work. I recommend that you enable compiled mode so that you get warnings about incompatible objects.

If you enable GUI export right now you will get a generic Dear ImGui based UI. Using manual adjustments to the generated C++ code you can get some very compelling UIs -> https://github.com/Wasted-Audio/wstd-fl3ngr
However the default is quite bland.

[dromer]

I'm looking more closely to how [popmenu] works and it might be possible to add it. However you won't be able to set any config using messages, so you'd have to configure it once and save it and those will be the options in your output.
It would then only send an index, alike the radio buttons.

I opened a ticket to add it here: Wasted-Audio/PDVG#6

[bgworkroom]

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

That makes everything much clearer. I understand that custom GUI export isn't fully supported yet, and it's good to know that PDVG is the direction for future GUI support.

I'm especially happy to hear that you're considering support for [popmenu], and thanks for opening the ticket for it! My use case is fairly simple: I mainly need a dropdown to select between a fixed list of options, so having the items configured in advance and only outputting the selected index would work perfectly for me.

In the meantime, I'll experiment with the generic GUI export and the compiled mode warnings to keep the patch compatible.

Thanks again for your help and for all the work you're putting into PlugData and PDVG!

[dromer]

Boilerplate is mostly done, but now it needs to create an actual dropdown: https://github.com/Wasted-Audio/PDVG/pull/7/changes
This is tricky because in plugdata it uses a JUCE component, which of course we don't have available.