Question - who should handle configuration?

[meganukebmp]

Hello, recently I opened an issue on OpenTTD/OpenTTD#14035 about configuration not being considered. This prompted the following question: Who should be handling fluidsynth configuration loading? Should every application that uses the library load the user and system configuration manually or should the fluidsynth library inherently load those configurations as the default when initialized and only allow clients to re-configure setting after the fact? If the application should load the configs on its own, can my my assessment on how it's done be confirmed? I wrote about how I believe it should be done in the OpenTTD issue, based on fluidsynth's default cli player implementation.

Thanks

[derselbst]

Whether or not to use fluidsynth's configuration files clearly is a decision that it up to the client application. This logic cannot be crafted into the fluidsynth library.

can my my assessment on how it's done be confirmed?

Confirmed, see the wiki page.

[meganukebmp]

Thanks for the answer. I believe loading configs should then be stressed more in the documentation. Also there should be an example that loads the configuration. Currently the only example is the fluidsynth cli itself, but it's big and complex. So far I've stumbled upon many programs that use fluidsynth but do not honor the config. It is likely that much of this software is not aware of this functionality to begin with.

[derselbst]

Yeah, I understand. The problem with those configuration files is they are a bit broken by design: In order to make all the different commands it could possibly contain work correctly, the config file needs to be fluid_source()d twice. Which is why (as an application developer) I'd always prefer to only pick those settings that I want to allow being modified by the user, and then have them modified in my own app UI.

[meganukebmp]

The primary usecase, including my own, for configuring fluidsynth to begin with is setting the soundfond and toggling various filters. Having fluidsynth or every client have to figure out where the system soundfont is by making guesses isnt good design. Neither id having it be a default symlink or file within /usr which should not be modified by users normally and left to the package manager. It gets even more confusing considering different platforms.