[PD-dev] release April?

[Christof Ressi]

Hi Miller,

good to hear from you!

Just a question: since you plan to add new features, this would be Pd 
0.55 - and not Pd 0.54.2 - right?

> I'm thinking of making a release mid April (assuming things go well) 
> and so I should probably call for a freeze late March.
That's a pretty narrow merge window, given that Easter holidays already 
start on March 23, which some of us want to spend with our families. I 
really appreciate the announcement, but it would be great if it could 
come a bit more in advance (i.e. more than 2 weeks before feature 
freeze). We all have jobs and/or families. I love to contribute to Pd, 
but I really need to plan ahead of time.

In general, instead of a very dense 2-week merge window twice a year, it 
would great to merge PRs on a mere regular basis. Not only would it 
cause less stress, it would also give us more time to find bugs before 
the actual release. That's just my personal opinion, of course.

---

A few things from my side:

1. Please consider my scheduler improvements: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/1756

I have been using this for 1 1/2 years now, both in my daily patching 
and in big concerts (including an opera production!), and I can't live 
without it anymore. It would be nice if other people could enjoy these 
improvements as well. Also, I wouldn't have to hand out custom Pd 
versions to my performers anymore :)

---

2. There are quite a few missing multichannel features!

Here are my multichannel PRs:

* MC support for [print~], [snapshot~] and [sig~]: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/1978

* MC support for [readsf~] and [writesf~]: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/2052

* MC support for [delwrite~], [delread~] and [delread4~]: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/2049

* allow to change the number of tables/channels in table DSP objects: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/2058

* signal comparison operators (finally!) with multichannel support: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/2054

The [snake~] object is also missing a few crucial features, most 
importantly:

* query the number of channels in a MC signal, e.g. [snake~ count]

* combine several MC signals into a single MC signal, e.g. [snake~ 
join], or extend [snake~ in to accept multichannel signals

* split a MC signal into several MC signals resp. get a subset of 
channels, e.g. [snake~ split] resp. [snake~ get]

* sum a MC signal, e.g. [snake~ sum]

People are already implementing these as externals, but these features 
seem so basic that they really should be part of Pd vanilla IMO.

For reference, here's the discussion: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/issues/1996

---

A few other things I really want to see eventually (not necessarily for 
this release):

* more clone improvements: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/2053

* "goprect" method: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/627. 
Solves a real issue and lying around for 5 years now.

* namespace constructors for all external objects: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/630. Solves a real issue and 
lying around for 5 years.

Cheers,

Christof

PS: here is a full list of my open PRs, in case anyone is interested: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pulls/Spacechild1?page=1&q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr+author%3ASpacechild1

On 12.03.2024 08:47, Miller Puckette wrote:
> To Pd dev -
>
> I'm thinking of making a release mid April (assuming things go well) 
> and so I should probably call for a freeze late March.  As usual I 
> plan to merge in "devel" and "Documentation" - in fact I should do a 
> first merge rather soon, assuming things are in a good state for merging.
>
> I'm planning to add a couple of features: 1. message to Pd to toggle 
> between GUI and no-GUI -- perhaps with a way to reset the GUI startup 
> command -- so that if you have a headless installation that's doing 
> something funny you can pop it open and look; and 2. improvements to 
> the "pointer" object to make it easier to get around data structures, 
> and possibly a menu extension for dragging new "data" onto the screen; 
> 3. an optional pop-up display showing (x,y) coordinates of object or 
> data knob being dragged.
>
> Incidentally: I just noticed that the IEM slider object (and proabbly 
> other EM GUIs) spits out a number when clicked upon, even if not 
> dragged.  Is this desirable behavior?  It caught me out buit perhaps 
> other users are actually wanting to be able to click on a control to 
> repeat its value.  Hmm..
>
> cheers
>
> Miller
>
>
>
>
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