[PD] PD Launcher/External Manager

[bbogart at ryerson.ca]

Hello all,

After teaching the PD workshop this past week Matt and I realized a couple things that PD could really use to broader the user-base.

First off, hats off to Adam and the clickable installers, made things much more smooth.

The installation of externals (Gem under windows in particular) is a huge pain, to quote from Matt-during the workshop "Do you remember where the GLUT.dll is supposed to go?" (I'm not even going to mention compiling gem, but thats what packages are for!)

I know someone on the list is working on/has made a PD-laucher. (David McCallum?)

What Matt and I propose is a PD launcher/external manager. This would be losely modeled on the MacOS 9 "extensions manager" where one turns off and on checkboxes to turn on and off extensions, and allows you to create sets of these choices "gem & zexy" "usb audio" "internal audio" "asio & gem & cyclone" These could be added as buttons or quick links. Another option, rather than checkboxes, is a two pane system, with a list of all externals on one side, and the current external set on the other, and using drag and drop to create sets. 

Ideally it would search for externals automatically, based on supplied search paths, and be cross-platform (windows/OSX/Linux + sgi?)

I'm thinking tcl/tk since I know it, and it must be installed to use PD anyhow.

I wanted to throw it out on the list so you guys can update us on the "laucher" status and give us any opinions on the matter. 

Thanks 
Ben