[PD-dev] tooltips idea

[Mathieu Bouchard]

On Sun, 16 Aug 2009, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
> On Aug 16, 2009, at 10:46 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Aug 2009, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>>> So there has been a revived discussion of adding "tooltip" support to 
>>> inlets/outlets, based on Günter's old patch.  I think we should open up 
>>> the discussion again to see if we can come up with a solution that Miller 
>>> would accept.  I believe his original objection was based on the fact that 
>>> the patch added a record to the t_class struct. So I was thinking that 
>>> instead of storing the tooltip data in t_class, it could be stored using a 
>>> custom struct like t_inletdescription that was then added to object's 
>>> class.
>> so the new objection will be based on the fact that the patch added a 
>> record to the t_class struct?... i mean, this struct doesn't make any 
>> difference with the original objection.
> Do you have a record of the original objection?  I am just operating on 
> memory.

When I said "original objection", I meant the one you stated above, which 
may or may not be the same that msp actually said.

I mean that if you add a t_symbol * in the t_class or if you add a 
t_inletdescription in the t_class or if you add a t_inletdescription * in 
the t_class, it's three times the same thing, which is to add a field in 
the t_class, which is what msp objected to, therefore your 
t_inletdescription proposal is not addressing msp's objection.

I had this idea that the tooltips could be added as a function pointer to 
the class, such that the tooltip value could change according to the 
object and even according to the moment, instead of being stuck at one 
value per class; but this idea also doesn't address msp's objection. I say 
that because you said "that makes sense since every instance should need 
the same data" and perhaps my first reply about it didn't make you think 
about what else it could be.

A big problem with the tooltips, is that t_inlets aren't made into classes 
the same way the t_objects are: most of the time, for a class of t_object, 
there are no custom t_inlet classes, and instead one of the four basic 
t_inlet classes are used. It makes the tooltip information shared for the 
first inlet and non-shared for the rest. this is an irregularity that has 
to be addressed somehow...

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