[PD] subpatchers/abstractions (was: pd and jack)

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003 bbogart at ryerson.ca wrote:
> PD has abstractions (Objects which refer to patches stored in seperate
> files from the main patch) and has subpatches which open up a new
> window to contain a new patch but is saved as part of the parent 
> patch. Abstractions support arguments, subpatches don't.
> you use pd [objectname] to make a subpatch.

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, Orm Finnendahl wrote:
> Sorry if I'm missing something, but could it be that you don't know of
> the "pd" object, which is the same as the "patcher object" in Max/MSP?
> It does everything you mention and is stored in the same file as the
> main patch.

That's true. Actually I expected that feature to be in the objects menu,
because that's how it is in jMax, in which [inlet] and [outlet] also have
their menu entries.

Speaking of which, if a subpatcher has several inlets, how would I
distinguish them easily?

I must say I'm glad PD has got those. Now there are less reasons for me to
stick with jMax. I still need an automatic .jmax->.pd converter though. (I
don't have so many patchfiles but I really don't want to do that by hand.)

Other things I find excessively annoying is the inability to wrap
objectbox/commentbox text properly. E.g. if i create a comment, i can
embed newlines, but when I save the patch, that information is not saved;
in jMax i only have to set the width of the commentbox. This gets really
annoying for objectboxes like:

@convolve * + 0 ( 3 3 int16 # -1 1 -1 1 4 1 -1 1 1 )

which take an inane amount of space (width) in the window. I could take
out the list literal and make it a message box and add a loadbang so that
my lines don't get too long but i consider that to be a kludge.

> I don't see the difference between what you describe and what an
> abstraction is in pd (it is basically one file in the same directory
> as the main patch and the main patch stores references to the
> abstractions instead of the abstraction code to minimize file size).

I said I'd like abstractions that are included inside .pd files as if they
were subpatchers, but otherwise work like abstractions. It would encourage
aggressive abstraction; otherwise it is tempting to copypaste subpatchers
in order to keep everything in one file.

> Did you check the "graph on parent" feature?

I did today. I found it a bit disappointing, but nevertheless, it works,
and it makes it possible to add a triple-slider class in 3 minutes
(instead of 3 hours of painful java coding in jMax), which is a
non-neglectible advantage.

> I attach a patch which dynamically allocates a matrix of
> checkboxes.

Thank you. Your help is much appreciated.

(I like that pd allows patches to modify themselves... I wonder whether it
could get a bit easier though)

________________________________________________________________
Mathieu Bouchard                       http://artengine.ca/matju