[PD-dev] saving preset pools in the parent path, rather than the abstraction path?

[B. Bogart]

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Hey Frank,

The relationship between two word files and a PD patch and preset file are
completely different. The preset file alters the behavior of the PD patch (one
word document alters nothing in a second). A preset file is to a patch more like
a word Macro is to a word file. The macro *could* be used outside the word
document it was attached to, but its perdominate use is in the context within it
was created. Macros are actually saved inside of word files. (hence so many
virus problems!) The preset file is most useful in the patch from which the
states were taken. Presets are so closesly aligned to the parent(main) patch it
makes sense that the preset file would be stored near/next to it.

That being said it is true that we're only talking about an extra step in
choosing the state file. The only reason I'm finding this one difficult to
accept in pixelTANGO is that I worry about other such steps getting in the way
of the user actually making something with the patch.

Indeed it would be too restrictive to make it the only way to save a state, BUT
as an other way of saving states it does not take away any flexibilty since the
method can be changed.

As for pixelTANGO what if the preset manager pt.presets (a wrapper for
caretaker) makes a guess as to a "suggested" file name (using guenter's pwd for
example) for presets. The user can either change the name or just leave it as
the default and choose to load it (no automatic loading). Of course it would be
nice to get the name of the top-level patch as well so that the suggestion could
be [patch-name]-presets.dat saved inside of [pwd].

Any opinions on the above proposal?

Looking at Guenter's PWD code it looks like there is lots of useful information
in the glist... What if there was an external/internal that made all this data
accessible within pd? then "pwd" could be an abstraction of this external...


Ben


Frank Barknecht wrote:
| Hallo,
| B. Bogart hat gesagt: // B. Bogart wrote:
|
|
|>Well quite a response here!
|
|
| Because it's an important topic.
|
|
|>The bottom line is:
|>
|>- For the end user it is annoying to save a state-file in an
|>absolute location manually. State-saving should be transparent so
|>the user does not have to worry about how it works or where it
|>stores files.
|
|
| But storing state files in absolute places is omnipresent in the
| computer world!  Even in music software. If you edit a text in Word or
| write a track in Cubase, you always are free to save your work
| whereever you want, not only next to some application binary. I iam
| sure, that every software user is familiar with this concept. This
| also is imporant for reusing one toplevel patch with different state
| files. Analog to reusing Word to write more than one text document,
| which generally is considered to be useful. ;)
|
|
|>- abstractions are used in the context of parents. I think it makes
|>little sense that each abstraction has its own set of states that
|>are not attached to the parent somehow.
|
|
| There are uses for this, too. For example data delivered with and used
| inside an abstraction should be inside the abstraction (for example
| different windows for grains etc.
|
|
|>When you load the same abstraction in another patch you don't want
|>it to still have states from its last parent. You might, but
|>considering it is a different context, you probably don't.
|
|
| In RRADical abstractions itself don't save or restore state *at all*,
| only the [caretaker] does this and the [caretaker] belongs in the
| toplevel patch. This is the Memento design pattern.
|
|
|>- The high-level meaning of a patch is in the top-most parent. This
|>is where the ~ user spends performance time. The states of all the
|>abstractions are intimately connected to this parent patch, and the
|>collection of states for all abstractions are only useful for this
|>particular patch (or performance mind-set). For this reason the pool
|>has to be associated with the top-most parent.
|
|
| I agree, that's why it is this way in RRADical. The toplevel patch has
| the caretaker object which is only responsible for storing and
| restoring state files and only the caretaker is. (Actually it doesn't
| have to be in the toplevel patch, it can be in its own separate
| patch.) This separation between the state itself and the guy, who is
| saving the state, maybe is the single most important concept in
| Memento as a design pattern.
|
|
|>What I was trying to do when writing the request was make memento do
|>this:
|>
|>* When you load a (parent) patch memento automatically loads the
|>pool file saved next to the parent patch, which is assumed to be the
|>one last used for this patch.
|
|
| First: Why? Word doesn't automatically load the last edited document.
|
| Second: This would be no real problem if the toplevel patch knows its
| location: Its working directory is the current working directory.
| Even if the toplevel patch is not in the current working directory, a
| user can load a state file with [openpanel] like the user does it all
| the time in Word.
|
|
|>* The user continues to play with the patch, moving sliders and such. They can
|>either re-load the initial states from the pool, or save the changes they have
|>made over the previous pool.
|
|
| This actually is, how it's done in Memento/RRADical.
|
|
|>When the patch is loaded it loads the last state-file used.
|>The user does not ever choose a file to store the values.
|
|
| Why shouldn't he choose a file? It avoids needing a Word binary for
| every .doc file. I really don't see, why having to open a state file
| to work on is less useable than automatic loading of state files which
| is, what I'd rather consider to be less usability. I mean, the state
| file is just a single document describing a track or similar things.
|
|
|>Now if you have a bunch of patches in one folder (as we usually do) then one
|>patch would stomp over the "presents.dat" (or whatever it is named) created in
|>another. So the ideal place to store the presents would be something like:
|>
|>[relative top-parent path]/[parent-name]-presets.dat
|>eg ./blah.pd saves ./blah-presents.pd
|
|
| I think, this is too restrictive.
|
|
|>You email the blah.pd and the blah-present.dat file to a friend, then open the
|>patch and like magic the presets are already loaded.
|
|
| This can be achieved with a not too clever [loadbang] sendung some
| messages to [careGUI], if we use something like Guenthers [pwd]
| external. However [pwd] must sit in the top-most patch then.
|
|
|>I don't know if I am on my own here in developing something like pixelTANGO but
|>for me user-transparency is more important than developer elegance.
|
|
| Actually I think, we are really not that far away in what we want to
| achieve. To both of us, the user of our patches is the main target
| audience, and our target user is not an experienced Pd user. I require
| two more clicks to restore state. (BTW: I intend to make this only one
| click actually, so LOAD will directly load a file and restore
| settings.) However we do not agree on how automatic state saving and
| restoring should happen, as should be clear from this discussion.
|
|
|>Frank: Now your seeing why I can't accept user-naming of abstractions for
|>pixelTANGO.
|
|
| Well, yes, this looks consistent with your approach to setting state
| file locations, however... ;)
|
| Ciao
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