[PD] help files was: Re: call for testing on the nightly builds!

[Frank Barknecht]

Hallo,
Hans-Christoph Steiner hat gesagt: // Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

> Pd-extended did not introduce namespace prefixes, Miller did that  
> probably before I even heard of Pd.  Pd-extended is just organized  
> around that idea.  Pd-vanilla fully supports namespace prefixes.  I  
> don't know how many times I have to say this, but it hasn't changed  
> since the beginning.  I guess its just part of the ebb and flow of  
> this list to have this discussion every 6 months. ;)

I also have a strong Deja vu. ;) 

Anyway, to reiterate the problem for others: *-help.pd files that are in
the same directory as the abstractions that they document work
everywhere:

    Directory layout 1:
    extra/prefix/abst.pd
    extra/prefix/abst-help.pd <= uses [abst]

    Start Pd:
    $ pd -path extra -helppath extra 

    Create [prefix/abst], select Help on it, "prefix/abst-help.pd" is
    opened and shows [abst]


But this doesn't work: 

    Directory layout 2:
    extra/prefix/abst.pd
    doc/prefix/abst-help.pd <= uses [abst]

    Start Pd as:
    $ pd -path extra -helppath doc 
    
    Create [prefix/abst], select Help on it, "prefix/abst-help.pd" is
    opened, but [abst] is broken.

This is a well-known issue and as far as I see it has two fixes

a simple one: Use "Directory layout 1" or

and a complex one: Make a [declare]/[import] for Pd-vanilla that
"works", agree on "prefix"es and add [declare]/[import] to the help file
to load "prefix" locally.

There also is a bad (IMO) third fix: Make abst-help.pd use
[prefix/abst], which is bad because it breaks, if you're not using
"Directory layout 2" exactly, for example, if you make a copy of abst.pd
and abst-help.pd in your working/project directory and don't install it
globally.

Deja vu end.

Ciao
-- 
Frank Barknecht