[PD] Pd and jack (again)

[Orm Finnendahl]

Hi Mathieu,

Am Dienstag, den 28. Januar 2003 um 14:54:21 Uhr (-0500) schrieb Mathieu Bouchard:
> One major feature missing from PD/jMax is special objectboxes that have
> subpatchers as arguments. This would give PD/jMax more of the flexibility
> that other dataflow environments such as LabView has.
>
>
> jMax already has subpatchers; you double-click on it and a separate window
> opens; however the subpatcher is stored in the same file as the patcher.
> PD could get this feature.

Sorry if I'm missing something, but could it be that you don't know of
the "pd" object, which is the same as the "patcher object" in Max/MSP?
It does everything you mention and is stored in the same file as the
main patch.

> (the advantage of jMax stops here.)
> 
> Then it would be good for abstractions to be embeddable in the same file
> as a main patcher. The difference between a subpatcher and an abstraction
> is that an abstraction may have several instances of itself inside the
> same patcher. The advantage of embedding abstractions is that it makes it
> more convenient (or less inconvenient) to build heavily structured
> patch-systems; you can put what would be 42 different .pd files inside
> only one, no need to give it a directory of its own, no use for zipping it
> to distribute it.

I don't see the difference between what you describe and what an
abstraction is in pd (it is basically one file in the same directory
as the main patch and the main patch stores references to the
abstractions instead of the abstraction code to minimize file size).

> Then it would be good to allow visually-embedded subpatchers. Then allow
> non-text inside objectboxes (so that I can put matrix literals inside
> object boxes in a nice form; see game_of_life.pd to get an idea of how
> ugly matrix-literals may get). Then allow processing-objects inside
> objectboxes; this implies subpatchers (incl. the visually-embedded ones)
> are allowed inside objectboxes.

Did you check the "graph on parent" feature?

> >From there it would be nice to have an object that can vectorize GUI
> objects so that I can get a matrix of checkboxes or a vector of sliders.
> 
> I actually often wish I had some kind of vector-of-sliders in jMax that
> would send out lists of integers. I have a use for that, as I often
> copypaste sliders and align them side-to-side and pack their outputs into
> vectors.

I attach a patch which dynamically allocates a matrix of
checkboxes. Just click on the different lists to get different
row/column settings. The checkboxes send to and receive from distinct
locations (check the properties dialog for values) and the patch
includes the graph on parent feature to be somewhat clearer. You can
do the same with any gui object (or basically any object of pd),
including dynamical allocation of patch chord connections when needed.
And the create-checkboxes subpatcher could be saved as an abstraction
for reusability (e.g. specifying rows and columns as arguments). You
could also add all sorts of bells and whistles like covering titles
and unneeded object boxes with canvases, dynamically color the
checkboxes/sliders etc.

Does that serve your needs or am I completely off topic?

--
Orm
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#X msg 58 305 \$1;
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