[Feature] Create virtual loopback device via MIDI Console or PowerShell cmdlet

[melanchall]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I'm the developer of DryWetMIDI library. The library has API to work with MIDI devices. I have a lot of tests on this API and of course I need to create some devices during CI/CD to run the tests. I use MS Hosted Azure Pipelines agents which are Windows Server images. I'm able to create virtual devices there via scripts using loopMIDI API.

But now I want to run the tests on ARM-based virtual machines. But loopMIDI doesn't (and won't I suppose) work on ARM machines. So I assume utilities provided by new Windows MIDI Services tools can help me with creation of virtual loopback devices with desired names in my CI scripts.

Describe the solution you'd like

There are two ways:

1. Some commands for MIDI Console app.
2. PowerShell cmdlet.

I will be happy with either. One key thing: I expect to be able to install a tool (MIDI Console or PowerShell cmdlets set) in scripts, not by hands, since it should be done automatically during CI.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Alternative solution will be to use new MIDI API to create simple console app which will create devices. But official built-in solution will be much better.

Do you wish to contribute a solution?

No

Additional context

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[Psychlist1972]

To support this, the full SDK runtime installer would need to go into the image because it has the dependencies required. I assume that is ok, as long as that install can be automated.

[Psychlist1972]

This has been added to the midi console for the next release.

You can specify the two names directly, or use the root name approach as above.

[Psychlist1972]

For scripting in CI/CD, you'll want to specify the association id so you can add/remove as necessary.

[melanchall]

@Psychlist1972 Awesome! Thank you so much!

I just have a couple of questions:

1. Why MIDI 1 apps will see 4 endpoints? I'm sure I'm missing something obvious. But let me please explain why I have this question.

   I think about a loopback device as an input/output endpoints pair. So everything sent to the output (from an app side) can be immediately received on the input. Your scheme looks for me as two loopback devices connected to each other.

2. What purpose of association ID? You wrote:

   you can add/remove as necessary

   So I read this as "you can call some command to delete device by the association ID". But I don't see "delete" command in your messages.
   Anyway, for CI/CD I just need to create loopback devices once and run tests "forgetting" about devices.

I know it's kind off-topic, but is it possible to install MIDI Console (or entire tools pack) programmatically in a script? For example, via Chocolatey or winget or something else?

Thank you, Pete!

[melanchall]

@Psychlist1972 I have one more question: can you please provide an option to create simple unidirectional virtual loopback device?

With bidirectional device I see the issue:

1. We create a device with TestDevice name.
2. Now I want to just get MIDI 1 input device with TestDevice name, but I'll fail with this since there is no device with that name (because TestDevice (A) and TestDevice (B) were created).
3. The same problem with output device.

It would be great to have an option to turn off bidirectional feature and don't modify requested device name.

[Psychlist1972]

@Psychlist1972 I have one more question: can you please provide an option to create simple unidirectional virtual loopback device?

With bidirectional device I see the issue:

1. We create a device with TestDevice name.
2. Now I want to just get MIDI 1 input device with TestDevice name, but I'll fail with this since there is no device with that name (because TestDevice (A) and TestDevice (B) were created).
3. The same problem with output device.

It would be great to have an option to turn off bidirectional feature and don't modify requested device name.

The bidirectional nature is here to stay, and the two names need to be unique. However, I do have this to enable direct control over the names.

#845

Pete

[Psychlist1972]

The direct naming is in the next rev of the console app. Just needs to be added to the settings app.

[melanchall]

Thank you, Pete!