Good idea, but unfortunately we do not have the plugins installed on the server running the net-instance.
Do you think there is a chance to build the subclass in runtime? Somehow the net creates its interface also at runtime when it connects to the "remote" camera

Ok, so indeed having a default or minimum number of derived classes as a build parameter would be necessary. Like this you'll get derived net cams even if you don't have any shared lib camera plugins installed.

I'm not sure I follow why you'd like to build the subclasses in runtime ? Currently, the code for the derived classes is built at build time, and the remote camera properties are instantiated at runtime, just like before, but in seperate derived classes.

(I just hated the idea of having net-derived-x classes so I made a meson script that replaces the x with installed camera names)

The plugins are usually not installed on the "client" side, so reading libuca*.so does not make sense.
I'm currently experimenting with subclassing the net-camera in the class_init and registering the remote properties only in the sub-classes, but I'm not yet satisfied. But then we would not need compile-time copies of the classes. I will proceed with this in January.

I'm currently too busy to proceed with a more elegant solution.

Fixed:

• min_derived_net_cameras to num_derived_net_cameras
• Fixed CMake builds
• Added NUM_DERIVED_NET_CAMERAS to the config files
• Set default number of derived cameras to 10.
• Still cannot instantiate the parent class UcaNetCamera... camera_plugin_get_type() is the culprit. The derived classes must define this function. But this creates conflicts if I also define it in the parent class (double definition).

My gobject knowledge is a bit rusty, so here is my idea in c++ wording.

If you create a pure virtual uca net base class, from which you inherit the netX and the normal net camera it should work. Then you do not have to overwrite the method.

I cannot overwrite a method but only add new ones in gobject classes?

This works now.
Question: Now we require python even for only a single net-camera (without suffix). Should we keep it like this, or should I generate the net once and add it to the source code?

Can you paste here a simple use case?

Also why do we just count them and not add the suffix of the actual camera behind net?

I mean, how am I supposed to know which camera is which?

Use case (in concert):

from concert.devices.camera.uca import Camera
net_dimax = await Camera("net0",params=host:port etc)
net_phantom = await Camera("net1", params=host:port, etc)

Then I don't have mixed up properties, since each remote-property is registered to a different class.

With ufo-kit/libuca#102 you can just write "net".

Also why do we just count them and not add the suffix of the actual camera behind net?

We do not have the remote plugins installed on the client side.

Right. Perhaps one could somehow get them from the server but I know that's additional work. I left a comment in the sibling PR too.