[PD] Pd-extended 0.43 updates: lots of new editing features

[Martin Peach]

On 2011-07-11 13:45, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Jul 2011, Martin Peach wrote:
>> On 2011-07-11 12:06, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
>>> But I'm not sure where to store the tooltip string...
>>
>> Not sure if that's what you mean, but in max the assist method
>> receives a number corresponding to the inlet or outlet and returns a
>> pointer to the appropriate string, so the string is already stored
>> somewhere in the memory allocated to the object.
>
> Not necessarily : the assist-method could be storing the data anywhere,
> or generating it on-the-fly from whatever.
>

OK, but the object is responsible for knowing where it is, not Pd.
If the string is generated on-the-fly or stored elsewhere the object 
will have allocated the memory for it.

> In theory, tooltip strings could be stored in something at the
> class-level instead of the object-level, just like methods called at the
> object-level refer to a method-table stored at the class-level.
>

That is indeed what happens: a shared library has a section for strings 
(or "data"). Unless it is generating them on-the-fly, each instance of 
the class will refer to the same location in memory for its strings.

> But Pd doesn't allow extending struct t_class by externals, and it
> doesn't have a tooltip field (except Günter's tooltip diff included a
> field for storing a symbol containing the text of the left-inlet's
> text... and only that).
>

I don't see a need to extend any structs, Pd just needs to call an 
object's assist method whenever the mouse is hovering over one of its 
inlet/outlets, and display the returned string inside a box. If there is 
no assist method, then Pd would use a default string from its own class, 
depending on what types were registered to that inlet/outlet at creation 
time.

Martin