[PD] messing with help-patches

[Roman Haefeli]

On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 15:59 +0200, Frank Barknecht wrote:
> Looking at the help patch will only give you a list of help patches.

yeah, you are right, it's better to look into the abs-directory itself.
but when exploring freshly installed externals, i usually have a quick
view on the list of helpfiles, just to get an idea... objects that miss
helpfile probably will never be used by me, since i don't know how they
work anyway....
 
> > i see, although this is only a problem in pd-extended, afaik. that means
> > there is no other way than having to add an extra -helppath for each
> > external. since the good ol' .pdrc has been considered to be deprecated
> > many times , iirc, and i couldn't find a way to add a -helppath through
> > the menu, this concept seems to be problematic.
> 
> Recursively added help-paths would also break stuff or at least create
> confusion on standard Pd. For example, assuming you have a help patch
> for maxlib/scale-help.pd and Gem/scale-help.pd. Which one should be
> used when you look for help on [scale]?

i don't understand your point here. let's say you have '-lib Gem:maxlib
-helppath /to/gem/helpfiles -helppath to/maxlib/helpfiles'. first you
don't know which [scale] is used when instanciated, then you still don't
know which helpfile is loaded on right-click->help.

> A solution could be directory namespaces. 

this is only a solution for abs, but not for externals, yet. and the
fact that pd-extended uses dir-namespaces doesn't make things easier,
since it breaks 'interchangeability' of patches between pd-extended and
pd.

> This would work for exmaple if you have a collection of patches in a
> directory "netpd" and if you will always use them with the directory
> prefix "netpd/". 
> So for example your "netpd" directory is in "mystuff", you have
> "mystuff/netpd/run.pd" and "mystuff/netpd/run-help.pd" inside which
> calls and explains [netpd/run].  Then you add this to
> .pdrc/pdsettings: 
> 
>  -path mystuff -helppath mystuff

i just found out, that when the helppatches are located in the same dir
as the abs, specifying only the -path works for helpfiles, too. this
makes your way - putting the helpfiles together with the abs - even more
usefull.

well, since i talked only with you, frank, may i ask you, how you
organize your stuff, just as an example? do you leave the helpfiles,
where the install-script has put them? or do you place them altogether
somewhere?

roman
 



		
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