[PD] Hi, new user. Question about max/msp and PD

[Jonathan Wilkes]

--- On Mon, 9/13/10, Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca> wrote:

> From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
> Subject: Re: [PD] Hi, new user. Question about max/msp and PD
> To: "Frank Barknecht" <fbar at footils.org>
> Cc: pd-list at iem.at
> Date: Monday, September 13, 2010, 5:19 PM
> On Mon, 13 Sep 2010, Frank Barknecht
> wrote:
> 
> > Oh, and instead of [transport] just use a metro with a
> counter sending to some global receiver. Read from this with
> [select] to get a kind of Max-5's [timepoint] clone. See,
> there's no magic behind these new Max 5 features, they just
> unified a bit what all Max/Pd users do anyway in their
> patches.
> 
> It's also that it's more marketable if they add rather
> trivial features just so that they can say «Max 5 has more
> features about time scale !». It's easier than to explain
> to them that Max doesn't need those features.

Better object documentation in Pd is a trivial feature in this sense-- 
it's easier for you to spend your time documenting GF objects than 
to explain how to read the source code.  (See, there's no magic behind 
those GF objects!)

Also, it's more marketable if Max has an object like [textedit] where 
the user can type multi-line text into a box.  It's easier than 
picking through the Toxy graveyard and learning that you can't send 
messages to the widget unless its containing canvas is visible, then 
trying to work with [entry] and having the data you typed in the 
box disappear because you minimized the window.  Then realizing that the 
whole reason you're looking for an object that corresponds to [textedit] 
is because you can't resize message boxes (and they don't appear on a gop canvas).

-Jonathan