[PD] implementing tooltips WAS: Pd-extended 0.43 updates: lots of new editing features

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Mon, 11 Jul 2011, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

> This leads to the question: should tooltip messages be per-instance or 
> per-class?  It could easily just be a field with a standard name in each 
> object's struct, then it would be a simple per-class implementation.  Having 
> an 'assist' method means that the external writer can decide whether the 
> string is per-class or per-instance.

Yes... whichever is appropriate. But the default assist-method should be 
designed so that in most cases, externals don't need to have a custom 
assist-method.

>> I don't see a need to extend any structs, Pd just needs to call an object's 
>> assist method whenever the mouse is hovering over one of its inlet/outlets,

A default assist-method needs to be storing data somewhere, and it cannot 
automatically pickup inlet names from anywhere in an external's source 
code. It has to be stored in some data-structures... For example, in both 
t_class and t_inlet (for nonproxy inlets).

> This is an important point that Jonathan brings up: if we add an 'assist' 
> method, that could mess up anything that ever sent a message that started 
> with 'assist'.

Then just do it like it is for savefn and propertiesfn. You see, it 
doesn't have to be something that goes through class_addmethod. The 
'assist' symbol issue is not an argument against defining an assist-method 
because it could be a field named assistfn directly in t_class.

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| Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC