[PD] newbie growing pains...

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
jared hat gesagt: // jared wrote:

> I'm having problems getting PD running comfortably.  The easiest way, in
> my opinion, for someone trying to learn PD is to open existing patches
> that are similar, or use the same objects, as the patch they are trying
> to build.  I've been quite frustrated because it seems that most of the
> patches that I open won't work on my system.  This is obviously my
> fault.  I probably don't have files/patches/externals in their right
> places. 

Not only probably, but for sure. Or maybe you have them, but you
didn't tell Pd, where you have them with the File->Path rsp.
File->Startup menu entries.

If you try to run patches that cannot create certain objects, you
should probably contact the patch author, who should know, what
objects are in use. Most of the objects are in the CVS at sourceforge.
Even if you don't plan to compile anything, I would recommend to get
hold of a complete checkout of the CVS, because you could search the
directories for missing objects. vasp for example is part of the CVS. 

> I think the biggest obstacle, for beginners, is getting PD
> setup correctly and to get everything running smoothly.  

No offense, but IMO a beginner should first get comfortable with the
builtin objects. Setting up plain Pd should be easy.

As for example Andy's patches on obiwannabe.co.uk show, you can do
amazing patches using no or just a small handful of externals. And
then there are Miller's patches in doc/* that all run without any
special setup required. 

If the builtin objects are known a bit, work up your way through some
common collections of externals. I would recommend to start with zexy.
Learn how to load a library and/or how to setup the search patch in
Pd to find single externals. 

Zexy is very useful, well documented, available in pd-extended and
also a good start when you happen to be interested in learning how to
compile your own binaries of externals. Concentrating on first getting
only one set of externals to run will teach you the basic principle of
getting every external to run. 

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__