python 3 update

[siliconsensor]

Dear Walco van Loon,

I had used aksy and aksui a long time ago, then I forgot about it. Recently I thought it would be worth trying again.
I don't know if you are still interested in the aksy project, but I would like to share with you what I did recently (under Ubuntu 20.04.3).

I have been thinking about it for years and since this summer I tried to update aksy to Python 3.
It is not easy because I am very far from being a good programmer, but since I have an Akai Z4,
I found that interesting as a challenge. I don't always understand what I'm doing, but I'm moving along.

For aksyx.c, aksyxusb.c and aksyxusb.h, the main challenge was to use libusb 1.0 (many change occured since version 0.1).
Everything is not finished, nor tested. For my case only, I wrote a simplified version of the file "setup.py" (because I was blocked by several things that I did not understand). At first I had tons of errors and warnings, then I came up with something.
Then, I install the file "aksyx.cpython-38-x86_64-linux-gnu.so" by: sudo cp *.so /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/

For the Python 2 to 3 conversion of aksui, strings were replaced by bytes objects.
The sysex.py and sysex_types.py modules took a lot of work, and it's probably not over yet.
There were other small changes but I didn't necessarily notice them.
I wrote a simple little test: "z4_usb_test.py". It is promising. It's amazing how much is still working after so many years.
I would also like to try to update the aksui package. I have a little bit of experience with GTK3, QT5 and tkinter.
Glade files update is almost complete, but I haven't made any further progress...

Maybe no one uses those old devices anymore ... But it amuses me to try to keep them operational.
Maybe I won't get very far for lack of time and motivation, but maybe what I have done could be of use to others, who knows?

Can you give me an email address so I can send you what I did?

Best regards.
CM

[walcovanloon]

Hi CM!

Every now and then somebody contributes to this project - I do believe this is the power of open source.

That is indeed a big effort you started with (and that I kept postponing), would be great to get your Python3 update in. WIll help you in your effort.

To effectively collaborate, you could create a fork of this repository, copy over your changes and then open a pull request?

Regards
Walco

[watzo]

@siliconsensor maybe something to chat about during the upcoming holidays? :-)

[watzo]

@siliconsensor I'm now working on the update, is pretty smooth so far.

[siliconsensor]

Good news! Personally, I was too busy the past few months to work on it. Good luck.