[PD] PD usability

Miller Puckette mpuckett at man104-1.ucsd.edu
Wed Feb 12 19:05:54 CET 2003


On the subject of "why Pd GUIs are bad in performance" check out
GrIPD, Joe Sarlo's GTK-based GUI builder for Pd:

http://crca.ucsd.edu/~jsarlo/

cheers
Miller

On Wed, Feb 12, 2003 at 06:59:37PM +0100, martin pi wrote:
> 
> 
> some points to this - or "why is pd really not
> friendly to the user"
> 
> 1. it has modes (as opposed to modeless
> environments (this is why people do not like vi,
> too). modes are hard to understand - especially
> for mac people since the mac interface is
> traditionally modeless
> 
> 2. it does not support the usual features like
> drag and drop, cut & paste (in message boxes for
> example) thus it is inconsistent (and that is the
> main point why people from the commercial side
> have problems with free software)
> 
> 3. it does not have a clear rythm of behaviour -
> sometimes it is fast as light, sometimes just
> stuck. most times inbetween. worst when audio
> processing is on (and realtime on my comp).
> 
> yet it is mostly verb-noun based thus good in the
> general flow
> 
> so much for the user interface. have to say that i
> really like it by the way.
> 
> martin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 eh at ixi-software.net wrote:
> 
> > hi 
> > 
> > i have been involved lately in software usability stuff and i don't really 
> > think PD is bad at all. there are some issues about the installation and  
> > the externals. sometimes its difficult to know how to make them work.  
> > etc... but they are minor if you think that you are getting it for FREE.
> > the interface of PD and PD environment are ok and they are very 
> > logical and consistent in terms of usability. I would say that the 
> > interface is specially "transparent" compare to many other 
> > environments or programs.
> > 
> > this is my opinion, and i am not a big PD user at all.
> > if he would be helping maybe PD would be better.
> > 
> > 
> > > I had a strange conversation yesterday with a teacher who basically said
> > > that free software sucks because of usability issues, and that he'll
> > > refuse to teach Pure Data because Max is vastly superior at the
> > > cognitive level. The segmented patch cord functionnality seems to be of
> > > major importance to him. He also seemed quite revolted by the
> > > installation process of the OSX version. So to him, the whole idea of
> > > free software is simply irrelevent. This man (who call himself an
> > > anarchist, go figure) is telling all those young people that they must
> > > pay a fortune to get a fancy Mac and a Max/MSP/Jitter licence.
> > > 
> > > I'm the only one in my community to use free software for multimedia
> > > production. I'd really like my people to use free software, but they
> > > simply don't want to, because the very second they are in touch with "no
> > > so easy to use" softwares, they almost puke. How could we make PD better
> > > so these people would agree using free software? I stopped using Max
> > > because of its restrictive license, and I prefer PD to jMax because it's
> > > lighter and faster. 
> > > 
> > > Most of us don't need fancy segmented patch cords and graphical objects
> > > with a puffy look, but can we focus a little bit on the graphical
> > > interface issues? I need those Mac addicts to use PD. I like being in
> > > touch with people on this list, but I also need real people (those I get
> > > in touch with everyday) to use the same tools than me.
> > > 
> > > --
> > > Marc
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > PD-list mailing list
> > > PD-list at iem.kug.ac.at
> > > http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>        
>        		martin pi
> 
>        		http://attacksyour.net/pi
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 	        www.machfeld.net
>        
> 
> 
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