[PD] help files

[Daniel Heckenberg]

The GOP feature looks great for making nicely modular components which
include their UI.

However, isn't that a little different from providing a UI for explanation
and demonstration purposes?  In the one case you've packaged something up
ready to use (e.g. the drum synth) and in the other you're trying to pull it
apart and explain its ranges and functions?  GOP stuff seems more
appropriate for a usable UI for a higher-level abstraction and the help file
approach is more about providing an interactive help page for an object that
you may want to use in the context of the patch you're in the process of
building - but probably won't end up using when you're finished building.
(Because you'll make a nice GOP UI for your patch/abstraction)

Given that most PD help patches are done in the style of patches, it seems
like a good idea to (when appropriate) make them a fully usable patch that
can be:
1) instantiated in a patch
2) cut and pasted and hacked up
to explore and accelerate things a bit.

?

Daniel

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Bogart - FMPM/F1999 [mailto:bbogart at acs.ryerson.ca]
> Sent: Tuesday, 23 July 2002 11:15 PM
> To: Frank Barknecht
> Cc: pd-list at iem.kug.ac.at
> Subject: Re: [PD] help files
>
>
> How about Daniels "example" abstraction just dropped inside the help
> patch? would not take any space or make things more confusing, but you
> can still copy and paste it into another patch) This is along the lines
> of the "more information" subpatch idea someone already mentioned.
>
> Ben
>
>
> On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Frank Barknecht wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> > Daniel Heckenberg hat gesagt: // Daniel Heckenberg wrote:
> >
> > > Many pd doco (help files) present little sections of useful
> > > connections to illustrate the working of the relevant object.  But
> > > why not have the object with all (or almost all) of its useful
> > > inputs connected to relevant controls in the help file, along with
> > > inlets and outlets to the help patch?  Then instead of plonking a
> > > new object into your patch, you can insert the help file abstraction
> > > into your graph and then open it to manipulate the controls?
> > > Someone did some help files for nato which work this way.  Very
> > > handy.
> >
> > The recently introduced graph on parent feature provides an IMO very
> > nice solution to this. With GOP, you can build higher level objects
> > that come with their GUI included. Three examples of this are included
> > im my "angriff" drum patch at footils.org, the most simple one therein
> > is [easydac~] which is a stereo dac~ object having a volume control
> > slider (0-1) and a dsp-on/off switch.
> >
> > Maybe we could start collecting such abstractions somewhere, but I
> > don't think the helpfiles are the right place, they should focus on
> > explaining the objects.
> >
> > ciao,
> > --
> >  Frank Barknecht                               _ ______footils.org__
> >
> >
>
>
>
> B. Bogart
> ---------
>
>
>
>