[PD] messing with help-patches

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Aug 21, 2006, at 11:18 PM, Roman Haefeli wrote:

> 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.

Directory namespaces work in all versions on Pd, this was not  
something that was added in Pd-extended.  It just takes advantage of  
them.  And this works fine for single-class, single-file externals.   
Just the multi-class, single-file libraries would have problems, but  
many of us consider those deprecated.

.hc

>
>> 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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