[PD] Are there alternative means of creating patches besides the graphical editor?

[errordeveloper at gmail.com]

On Thu, Feb 03, 2011 at 09:04:18AM +0100, Lorenzo Sutton wrote:
> HI,
> 
> Morgan Packard wrote:
> > Hello there.
> > I'm interested in using PD. However, as someone who spends a lot of 
> > time with code, I'm actually a little afraid of the learning curve 
> > involved with the graphical programming language! I'd be much more 
> > comfortable creating my patches using, for example, a Python tool. 
> > Does such a programmatic PD patch generation tool exist? I can't 
> > imagine I'm the first person who's wanted such a thing.
> People will probably point you to csound or supercollider for your first 
> statement... Anyway the curve is not really so steep, dataflow is of 
> course a slightly different mindset, although if you are skilled at 
> coding that will nevertheless prove benefical.
> 
> Regarding python, you might have a look at py/pyext [1]. I couldn't 
> successfully have it setup in Ubuntu, because it is strongly tied to a 
> particular python version. Something more 'flexible' IMHO would be nice, 
> ideally running directly within pd would be really nice, even at the 
> level of non-dsp abstractions to begin with (similarly to javscript in 
> MAX)... But this doesn't seem to be of much interest currently.
> 
> Lorenzo
> 

You can write plug-in scripts in Tcl/Tk. Since 0.43 there is an official
way of loading them .. though Miller disregards this feature.