[Pd] active and tot not right in pd-extended

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Sep 14, 2006, at 11:22 AM, <martin.peach at sympatico.ca> wrote:

>>> Why exactly does the config file have to be platform specific?
>>
>> It doesn't have to be, it just better that way.  Then users who know
>> their platform have to learn less new things to work with Pd.
>>
>
> But users who already know pd from another platform will have to  
> learn a new way to handle its configuration :(
>
>>>> How many users know how to edit this proposed config file?  Just
>>>> about how many know how to edit the registry settings for Pd.  The
>>>> FAQ can provide some help for getting people up to speed.  We  
>>>> need to
>>>> build on existing knowledge so that people don't have learn Pd-
>>>> specific things for trivial operations.  For what Pd does with it,
>>>> the registry is simple to use.  Plus if you learn the registry  
>>>> in the
>>>> process of figuring out manual Pd configs, then you can apply that
>>>> knowledge to just about every other Windows program.
>>>
>>> I don't know _any_ windows program that encourages users to play
>>> around with its registry entries. That usually results in odd
>>> behaviour. MS wants the program to read and write the registry
>>> through the API, the user isn't supposed to even suspect that it
>>> might exist. The main reason for it seems to be for licensing and
>>> copy-protection secret keys. My registry seems to have thousands of
>>> entries. Browsing it is very tedious.
>>> I propose that an xml file could be read/writeable by pd in the
>>> same way the setting dialogs work currently. Since it's a plain
>>> text file and out in the open, anyone could read it, and "experts"
>>> could edit it directly.
>>> As long as the 'xml' is kept simple (no nesting, no dtd lookups) a
>>> parser should be doable in tcl, maybe a tcl xml parser already
>>> exists(?)
>>>
>>
>> We are on the same page, we just disagree about how to solve the
>> problem.  If the preference panels were fixed, then Windows users
>> wouldn't have to touch the registry, and people on other platforms
>> would benefit too.  Just changing the underlying format will mean
>> that users have to learn a different, arcane config file.  That
>> doesn't seem like a benefit to me.
>
> The point is it shouldn't be arcane. It's just an ASCII text file  
> with easy-to-understand tags. It could even include a full set of  
> usage instructions as comments. To me the command line is arcane  
> and the registry even more so.


To many Pd users, any text config file will be arcane.  How often to  
you directly edit text files for your Mail program?  Your word  
processor?  Any GUI app?  Pd is a GUI-based program, any kind of  
config editing should be possible via the GUI.  Then we would have to  
think about the underlying storage format.

.hc


------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.