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

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Sep 14, 2006, at 10:50 AM, <martin.peach at sympatico.ca> wrote:

>
>>
>> De: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at eds.org>
>> Date: 2006/09/14 jeu. AM 10:29:18 GMT-04:00
>> À: <martin.peach at sympatico.ca> <martin.peach at sympatico.ca>
>> Cc: "David Powers" <cyborgk at gmail.com>,  <pd-list at iem.at>
>> Objet: Re: [Pd] active and tot not right in pd-extended
>>>> Some kind of "config" or ".ini" or whatever file, would make it far
>>>> easier to change options for one install, without messing up the
>>>> other.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I agree totally. I see no reason to mess with the registry. Surely
>>> a text (or better: XML) file would be a platform-independent way of
>>> saving settings that  doesn't require calling a
>>
>> The idea is to be platform-specific.  The .pdrc is the old platform-
>> independent config file.
>
> 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.

>> 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.

.hc


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