Dynamically Linking for Development

Development
1

I haven’t dug around the code yet but I’m interested in hacking my development version of VCV Rack so I can dynamically load and unload my plugin under development in realtime. It takes a few seconds for stuff to start up, connect audio ports, MIDI ports, etc. every time I run Rack to test even a small change in my plugin. It would be better if I could unload and reload it automatically.

Has anyone investigated this? Obviously a lot of functionality like reconnecting patch cables and restoring state would be needed too, but I’m wondering if it’s even feasible or practical?

2

I’d be happy to be wrong about this, but I think dynamic updating of plugins would be pretty darn hard to work into the V1 codebase.

If you want to squeeze as much time as you can out of the compile-run loop, putting in a setup harness would be comparatively easy (if you have needs that go beyond what autoloading the last patch gives you).