EspGrid Installation

In general, getting setup for using EspGrid involves two things:

1. Downloading the EspGrid application, and (on Windows and Linux only) GNUstep libraries
2. Setting up helpers/plugins/extensions for the software you wish to use with EspGrid

Installing EspGrid on OS X

Click on "Download" (above) and download the most recent OS X release of the software. If you want, you could drag the software to your Applications folder, but this is not necessary - EspGrid will run from wherever you put it.

Installing EspGrid on Windows

On Windows, EspGrid requires that the GNUstep libraries be installed. Two GNUstep libraries are required: GNUstep MSYS system and GNUstep Core. Both packages are easy to install and can be downloaded here.

After you have the two GNUstep libraries installed, click here to download the most recent Windows release of the software. You should be able to run the downloaded executable no matter where on your system you place it, just by double clicking on it. (Note: on Windows, the EspGrid executable is called espgridd.exe.)

Building EspGrid on Linux

On Linux it is generally necessary to build EspGrid from source code. You'll need to have the commonly available GNUstep packages (basic and development) installed on your system. After that, clone the EspGrid source tree from github, change into the EspGrid subfolder of the EspGrid source tree and invoke "make". When everything has built, you can copy the espgridd executable to a suitable place in your system's path so that you can run it just by typing espgridd from any terminal. That all might look something like this:

          cd ~
          git clone https://github.com/d0kt0r0/EspGrid
          cd EspGrid/EspGrid
          make
          sudo mv espgridd /usr/local/bin
        

Setting up SuperCollider for EspGrid

The Esp.sc quark for SuperCollider makes it easy to work with EspGrid. Make sure you have SuperCollider 3.7 or greater. Evaluate the following to install it (but on Windows see the note immediately below):

          Quarks.install("Esp");
        

That's it! Restart SuperCollider (or Recompile the Class Library) for the new extension to be available.

Note re: SuperCollider on Windows: On recent Windows builds of SuperCollider the Quarks systems that allows easy installation of extensions may not be working "out of the box". Evaluate Quarks.gui. If you see an empty list (no quarks listed) then you may not have "git" installed (required by the Quarks system) or SuperCollider may be unable to find it on the system's path. A recommended fix is to (a) install Git for Windows and then (b) add C:/Program Files/Git/bin to your system's path as follows:

• Click on Settings
• then System
• then About
• then System Info (at the very bottom)
• then Advanced System Settings
• then Environment Variables
• then Edit with the focus on PATH
• then click New and enter C:/Program Files/Git/bin
• close and relaunch SuperCollider
• confirm that evaluating Quarks.gui gives you a list of available Quarks
• Click on Esp in the list, or evaluate Quarks.install("Esp") to install the Esp.sc quark
• Restart SuperCollider (or Recompile the Class Library)

Setting up Tidal for EspGrid

There is currently an experimental Tidal-EspGrid integration that will hopefully become a standard feature of Tidal soon. To use it now, you'd clone that experimental branch of Tidal and install it. That might look something like this:

          cd ~
          git clone https://github.com/d0kt0r0/Tidal
          cd Tidal
          git fetch
          git checkout -b espgrid origin/espgrid
          cabal install
        

If you need to change back to the normal, current release of Tidal without EspGrid integration, that might then look like this:

          cd ~/Tidal
          git checkout -b master origin/master
          cabal install
        

Setting up other programs for EspGrid

EspGrid communicates with other applications via a simple Open Sound Control (OSC) interface (click on "Protocol" for the details of this) so it can easily be integrated with any software that is capable of sending and receiving OSC messages over UDP. As additional helpers/integrations for other systems become available, they'll be added to this page, and discussion/questions/requests about such integrations can take place on the live coding #synchronization channel.