[PD] PD Launcher/External Manager

Mon May 26 18:24:42 CEST 2003

On Sunday, May 18, 2003, at 09:49 America/New_York, bbogart at ryerson.ca 
wrote:

> Hello Hans-Christoph,
>
> I think the first version will assume external binaries have already 
> been extracted/built.

> The packaging thing makes me a little nervous because I was hoping the 
> system would be a single tcl script that would run on all platforms. 
> Only problem is the availibility of different packaging systems (tgz, 
> dpkg, zip etcc) and dealing with them from inside the launcher.
>

I think that making a system to track down various installers and 
install them is basically duplicating the effort to have pd developers 
use the CVS.  If the vast majority of developers use the CVS, then 
there would not be a compelling need to have an elaborate system to 
track down externals since most of them would already be included in 
the installer.    So I think working making the CVS as accessible as 
possible to all Pd developers, and encouraging people to use the CVS is 
more important.

> In my vision of the launcher I think it would be great that it gets 
> integrated into PD somehow. I don't think inside PD would be the place 
> to do this though, since the libs have to be loaded before that. (load 
> PD, change prefs, then load PD again to load the libs/options) Also 
> functionality not possible with .pdrc would be managing different sets 
> of options. I do this with aliases on my linux machine, with often 3 
> lines of flags, all loading the same PD, but with different options. I 
> think it would be very useful to have sets of these options.
>
> In terms of windows I don't think it makes any sense to write an ugly 
> .bat file when this stuff can be managed within tcl itself.

I think this should all be in Tcl since its cross-platform and already 
there when using pd.  As for doing it 'inside' pd, it would easy enough 
to have a Tcl script handle all of the startup options, then launch pd. 
  So basically, it would be like a GUI .bat launcher written in Tcl.  
But I think we should also start moving towards a 'Preferences' idea, 
so that you can change these settings while pd is running.  For now, 
you could just have the Preferences panel just rewrite the .pdrc, then 
you'd need to restart for the changes to take effect.  But then, as 
developers are willing to dig deeper into pd, the Preferences could be 
made to change this stuff in realtime.  That's my vision of how this 
should work.

But a related question is, what is preventing Windows from having a 
.pdrc?  Anybody know?  Having .pdrc be standard across all platforms 
would simplify this effort.

.hc

> Cotributions would be great, how are/were you envisioning the project?
>
> Ben
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at eds.org>
> Date: Friday, May 16, 2003 1:39 pm
> Subject: Re: [PD] PD Launcher/External Manager
>
>>
>> This is a great idea, something I was planning on working on this
>> summer.  I'd like to contribute if possible.  Perhaps we can put
>> it in
>> the CVS and collaborate.
>>
>> As for distributing the externals, I think rather than building
>> our own
>> distribution system, we should use what's out there for each OS.
>> Debian and RedHat have very nice existing methods, and the
>> externals in
>> the SourceForge CVS can be compiled into a set of Debian packages
>> right
>> now.  They just need to be submitted to the Debian and/or DeMuDi
>> repository.  It shouldn't be too hard to add RedHat/PlanetCCRMA to
>> that, but currently Nando at CCRMA does that outside of the CVS.
>>
>> For Windows and OS X, if we make installer packages for the same
>> sets
>> of externals as the Debian packages, that will greatly simplify
>> things.
>>  But the biggest thing that would improve the situation would be
>> to
>> have all of the externals in the CVS.  Then they would be included
>> in
>> the existing packages, or if necessary, they can be made into
>> their own
>> package.
>>
>> Think of it this way: if we had all of the externals that didn't
>> have
>> lib dependencies in the CVS, they could all be included in the
>> main
>> externals package in the CVS and they would all be installed with
>> that
>> package.  The key omissions that I can think of off the top of my
>> head
>> are the collections of Olaf Matthes, Krzysztof Czaja, Thomas
>> Musil,
>> Dave Sabine, and Yves Degoyon; there are others as well, who's
>> objects
>> are an important addition to anyone's pd install, and I hope that
>> anyone who writes externals for pd will contribute them to the CVS.
>>
>> So to encourage others to join the CVS, I am going to configure
>> access
>> control lists in the CVS so that devs who choose to can restrict
>> write
>> access to their code in the CVS.  I am also willing to upload
>> people's
>> code and help with setting up CVS access.
>>
>> .hc
>>
>> On Tuesday, May 13, 2003, at 13:00 America/New_York,
>> bbogart at ryerson.ca
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> If someone wanted to upload built versions of the stable
>> externals in
>>> CVS, as tgz and zip files, for all platforms to a ftp server,
>> then
>>> that would be a LOT easier for the tool to do. (download and
>> extract,
>>> but then you depend on extraction tools, whats the average size
>> of the
>>> externals? (for all platforms?)
>>>
>>> I'm thinking the double pane idea would work better from a
>> usability
>>> standpoint, opinions?
>>>
>>> B.
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Marc Lavallée <odradek at videotron.ca>
>>> Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 9:51 am
>>> Subject: Re: [PD] PD Launcher/External Manager
>>>
>>>> David McCallum wrote :
>>>>> My Pd launcher's no more than a custom DOS .bat file that let's
>>>>> you turn Framestein and ASIO drivers on/off at runtime.
>>>>
>>>> I use the same technique in Linux with a shell script.
>>>>
>>>>> And as a windows user I have to ask this, how cross-platform are
>>>>> you intending this to be?
>>>>
>>>> Tcl/Tk. The launcher would list the externals with their
>> descriptions,>> and checkboxes would activate them. If an internet
>> source is
>>>> provided it
>>>> would first download and install the externals. Isn't there a
>> Windows>> mechanism to install softwares from the network?
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Marc
>>>>
>>>> "L'homme n'est pas fait pour travailler, la preuve c'est que
>> cela le
>>>> fatigue." (Voltaire)
>>>>
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