[PD] Revising Help Files

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Jun 12, 2009, at 4:50 AM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:

>
> Ok, a couple things:
> 1. pddplink gives a big error when loading your template:
> wrong # args: should be "::pddp::srvUse ?root? ?port?"
> wrong # args: should be "::pddp::srvUse ?root? ?port?"
>    while executing
> "::pddp::srvUse D:/Documents and Settings/dude/Desktop"
>    ("after" script)
>
> It still shows up in the patch (and seems to work).  I'm on
> windows xp.

bugs bugs bugs... keep on coming up... yeah, that should be fixed... I  
think its only on Windows.

> 2. Is there an object that outputs the methods
> of objects?  It would be nice to automatically generate info for
> inlets/outlets/arguments rather than type it in by hand.

This is the kind of stuff that IOhannes is working on in the iemguts  
lib, check that to see if it is possible.

> 3. Is absattr a normal part of pd-ext?  I seem to remember using it
> previously for something, but it's not in the most current release.
> In any case, I went ahead and tried to make my keys and values
> compatible with absattr.

No, its part of Thomas Grill's flext externals, which are maintained  
in a separate SVN and he releases his own binaries.

I think that absattr is not a Pd-ish way of working, Pd has no  
'attributes' like Max/MSP.  I think the documentation should be as Pd- 
ish as possible.

> 4. Is there a place somewhere on puredata.info where there's
> a discussion I can read about why each inlet/outlet/argument needs
> a description?

Hmm, definitely somewhere, donno exactly where.  I remember it seeming  
obvious, plus we were following the precedent of the Gem docs.

> 5. Is there a limit to the number of arguments an abstraction may
> have?

Hmm, I think 10 but I could be wrong.

.hc

>
>
> Thanks,
> Jonathan
>
>
> On Wed, 6/10/09, Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at> wrote:
>
>> From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
>> Subject: Re: Revising Help Files
>> To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: "a. tonal" <ladataxi at hotmail.de>, pd-list at iem.at
>> Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 9:03 PM
>>
>> Hey,
>>
>> Your patches look quite nice.  I'm glad you are taking
>> this stuff on, Pd will definitely benefit from more work on
>> the documentation.
>>
>> There was quite a bit of discussion on this topic a few
>> years back as part of the PDDP project.  All of the
>> discussion is archived on http://puredata.info/dev/pddp  We did  
>> come up with
>> a template, you can download it from the SVN.  It is a
>> bit heavier that your design:
>>
>> http://pure-data.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/pure-data/trunk/doc/pddp/templates/template-help.pd
>>
>> About htab's dependency on pddp/dsp, it would be possible
>> to make pddp/dsp a subpatch.  But then again, I think
>> that Pd-extended is the only distro to include the PDDP help
>> patches, so it makes sense to use the pddp/dsp object.
>>
>> .hc
>>
>> On Jun 10, 2009, at 12:09 AM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>>
>>> Hi List,
>>> I'm interested in revising the help files for the
>> basic objects in
>>> pd-ext.  Basically having a standard table so
>> that one can find
>>> quickly find basic info on an object.
>>>
>>> I made an abstraction called htab that automatically
>> formats this
>>> information in a gop abstraction.  Currently I'm
>> entering the info
>>> as arguments to htab, which works quite well when
>> using
>>> ctrl-t.
>>>
>>> However, there are currently lots of different help
>> patch formats in
>>> the reference folder for the common pd objects.
>> I'd like to have
>>> one standard format to make it quicker and easier to
>> get help.
>>>
>>> Attached are examples of what I'd like to
>> implement.  Aside from
>>> the pddp/dsp abstraction, it has the benefit of being
>> vanilla-
>>> compatible and fitting on an 800x600 screen (at least
>> on windows).
>>>
>>> Please have a look at the attached and let me know if
>> this seems
>>> like a good format or not.  The patches should
>> work with the
>>> current pd-x.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>>
>>> <reference-6-8-09.zip>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we
>> should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any
>> invention of ours; and this we should do freely and
>> generously.         - Benjamin
>> Franklin
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>



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