[PD] Re: Mac OS X installer with library documentation

[Burt]

Greetings again,

I have posted a new version of an installer for OS X.

http://pcm.peabody.jhu.edu/~sburt/pd/installing_pd_os_x.html

Rob Lycett requested that I add the comport library and its documentation, so I did.  I was also frustrated by tcl/tk handling of submenus within submenus.  If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know.  So, I placed the 7.stuff subdirectories directly into the Help menu which is not elegant and only temporary.  I also added a zexy submenu to Help (which I had previously forgotten).  So, now there should be easy to find documentation on basic PD objects, the libraries Gem, vasp, pmpd, Han's hid, and Zexy, plus everything inside the stuff folder including (now) comport.

I feel that a better way to organize the Help menu (with my segregated library approach) would be to do it with submenus for PD and major libraries and an extra folder for smaller things:

PD Documentation/
    HTML manual/
    control examples/
    audio examples/
    fft examples/
Gem/
pmpd/
vasp/
zexy/
extras/
    hid/
    comport/
    stuff/
       audio playpen/
       data-structures/
       soundfile-tools/
       synth/
       tools/

Unfortunately, this would require a restructuring of PD documentation as it is now, and I would have to understand how to create submenus in submenus in tcl/tk.  Can anyone do this?  What would be really cool would be to adjust the Pd script so that Help documentation of a particular library does not appear until the library is loaded.  That way, we avoid users opening help patches and getting messages about objects not existing (or worse yet, PD crashing).


Samuel Burt