[PD] templates...

[Nicolas Lhommet]

From: "Miller Puckette" :
> You can't selectively clear part of a window... I'm curious why you
> want to though... are you by any chance using the deadly "namecanvas"
> object?  I'll do anything to get people to stop using that one...

No, I don't use namecanvas (pd-messages are ok). I attempt to do some gui
stuff with templates.
It's possible to clear the data window and object list with a "clear"
message to the window, but in a graphic interface, it's usefull to be able
to delete or redraw some objects, without clearing it all and redrawing.

(I still don't master the templates terminology well. In what follows, a
"graphic object" is a displayed scalar.)

Another thing is to get some fixed objects (that you can't modify with the
mouse) in the data window.
With pd-0.34.2, I noticed it was possible to add this kind of objects (like
a drawpolygon object with fixed values) by sending a message ("pd-template
obj X Y ... ... ...") to a template window. The data window was
automagically updated, the same if I removed the drawpolygon object box (a
bit tricky, but better than nothing :).

Last days I spent some time with templates on pd 0.35, "struct" is a good
thing (and all the related bugfixes too) but actually I can do less than
before (may be some of it is on your todo list).

I know that a more complete gui-toolkit is not a priority for Pd, but here
is my little wish-list:
- a "remove" object (the opposite of "append")
- a parameter to append some graphic objects which can't be modified with
the mouse in the data window, but which you can set parameters to from the
patch
- even better : a "focus" method for objects that need to be redrawn on a
the front layer.
- a mechanism to 'point' easily to a graphic object (named scalars ?)

regards
nicolas