[PD] PD usability

[mark]

Indeed - this is something annoying me to. I want a reference 
manual. I'm working on two new externals and then I am going
to look into this. There must be a way to autogenerate either 
the patches or reference pages. My ideal would be to take the 
patches and autocompile them into a PDF.

I will be reopening this debate in a week or two when I am ready
to do something about it.

cheers 

mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pd-list-admin at iem.kug.ac.at 
> [mailto:pd-list-admin at iem.kug.ac.at] On Behalf Of Matthew Nish-Lapidus
> Sent: 12 February 2003 23:13
> To: 'pd-list'
> Subject: Re: [PD] PD usability
> 
> 
> i would have to say the biggest issue that i have with PD is 
> docs.  MAX's help files are amazing.. if PD had help files 
> like that there would be a lot less difference between PD and 
> MAX in the learning phase.
> 
> matt.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "mark" <mark at junklight.com>
> To: "'Marc Lavallée'" <odradek at videotron.ca>; "'pd-list'" 
> <pd-list at iem.kug.ac.at>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 5:59 PM
> Subject: RE: [PD] PD usability
> 
> 
> If it where me that wanted to make PD more "producty" 
> (technical term that :-) - and its not -  I already have 
> enough joy with this at work with users/support/testing/load 
> testing/a development team/a dept. head/etc. - Then I would 
> try to establish a small group of volunteers to do the work. 
> I am sure the rest of the community would support such an 
> effort if it didn't mean much work on their part.
> 
> The key areas I see as being vital are;
> 
> installer - not always an easy job 'cos of the platform thing 
> (and the quality of the tools). As a guide I have had a team 
> member put in about 6 man months over the last two years on 
> our installer.
> 
> Config - midi/audio selection would have to be a preferences 
> dialog for the more casual user. I guess this would have 
> implications on how PD starts up too.
> 
> GUI - you can argue its fine until you are blue in the face - 
> people are used to and expect pretty interfaces - if you want 
> minimalist/functional then it needs to be *designer* 
> minimalist functional (think Peter Saville/factory records). 
> Its just the way it goes.
> 
> Docs - there needs to be a reference manual. Again you can 
> argue about it all you like - not having one means that the 
> beginner has to do a lot more work to get into the product.
> 
> Support - who is going to provide support to people. What 
> happens when the mailing list is full of people going - "it 
> does't work on my pc..why?" or "I NEED feature X..why can't 
> you make it do that"
> 
> Don't get me wrong - PD is just great as it is as far as I am 
> concerned
> - what
> I am talking about is making it accessible to a wider 
> audience. It will grow larger as time goes by and by having a 
> high level of knowledge needed for entry we make life easier 
> for ourselves.
> 
> Again - not trying to pour water on ideas but if you want to 
> make PD accessible to a wider audience you need to consider 
> what is involved
> 
> cheers
> 
> mark
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: pd-list-admin at iem.kug.ac.at 
[mailto:pd-list-admin at iem.kug.ac.at] 
> On Behalf Of Marc Lavallée
> Sent: 12 February 2003 22:37
> To: 'pd-list'
> Subject: RE: [PD] PD usability
>
>
> Le mer 12/02/2003 à 16:59, mark a écrit :
>
> > Sorry to be blunt about this but I did say I had my day job hat on.
> > :-)
>
> I actually resigned from a well paid job in a university center 
> because I was unable to bring artists to use free software and be more

> responsible. I had to manage a bunch of projects, buy computers and 
> softwares, and program "art". It was a stupid and impossible mandate, 
> because artists (especially students) must do their own stuff, not 
> always rely on programmers to hold the mouse for them. Of course,
> most artists were asking for Macs/Max/MSP/Jitter, leaving
> little money for anything else, including humain brain juice.
>
> So for me, a "better" PD would have been cool. I won't accept such a 
> job unless artists agrees to change their tools and their attitude 
> toward technology. But we need to help them a little bit, or I might 
> never work with them again.
>
> --
> Marc
>
> _______________________________________________
> PD-list mailing list
> PD-list at iem.kug.ac.at
http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list


_______________________________________________
PD-list mailing list
PD-list at iem.kug.ac.at
http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list


_______________________________________________
PD-list mailing list
PD-list at iem.kug.ac.at
http://iem.kug.ac.at/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pd-list