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

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Tue, 12 Jul 2011 10:33 -0700, "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> 
> 
> --- On Tue, 7/12/11, Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at> wrote:
> 
> > From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
> > Subject: Re: implementing tooltips WAS: [PD] Pd-extended 0.43 updates: lots of new editing features
> > To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> > Cc: "Mathieu Bouchard" <matju at artengine.ca>, "Martin Peach" <martin.peach at sympatico.ca>, "pd-list" <pd-list at iem.at>
> > Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 6:39 PM
> > 
> > On Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:57 -0700, "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > --- On Tue, 7/12/11, Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
> > wrote:
> > > 
> > > > From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
> > > > Subject: Re: implementing tooltips WAS: [PD]
> > Pd-extended 0.43 updates: lots of new editing features
> > > > To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>
> > > > Cc: "Mathieu Bouchard" <matju at artengine.ca>,
> > "Martin Peach" <martin.peach at sympatico.ca>,
> > "pd-list" <pd-list at iem.at>
> > > > Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 4:40 AM
> > > > 
> > > > On Jul 11, 2011, at 10:03 PM, Jonathan Wilkes
> > wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > > --- On Tue, 7/12/11, Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > >> From: Mathieu Bouchard <matju at artengine.ca>
> > > > >> Subject: Re: implementing tooltips WAS:
> > [PD]
> > > > Pd-extended 0.43 updates: lots of new editing
> > features
> > > > >> To: "Hans-Christoph Steiner" <hans at at.or.at>
> > > > >> Cc: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancsika at yahoo.com>,
> > > > "Martin Peach" <martin.peach at sympatico.ca>,
> > > > "pd-list" <pd-list at iem.at>
> > > > >> Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 3:28 AM
> > > > >> On Mon, 11 Jul 2011, Hans-Christoph
> > > > >> Steiner wrote:
> > > > >> 
> > > > >>> IMHO, I don't think we should
> > support other
> > > > ways of
> > > > >> specifying the help file. There are very
> > few
> > > > objects that
> > > > >> use it, those are fixed in Pd-extended,
> > it'll add
> > > > a lot to
> > > > >> the work of doing this, etc. etc.  So I
> > say
> > > > just take
> > > > >> the object name and add the '-help' to
> > it. 
> > > > That covers
> > > > >> 99.5% of objects.  Then once its
> > working, it
> > > > should be
> > > > >> possible to go back and add hacks to
> > support hacks
> > > > ;)
> > > > >> 
> > > > >> c_helpname is not a hack, it doesn't
> > need to be
> > > > «fixed»,
> > > > >> and it shouldn't be «fixed». It's
> > there for a
> > > > reason.
> > > > > 
> > > > > One thing I'm running into is that
> > c_helpname doesn't
> > > > help with abstractions-- it obviously just
> > returns
> > > > "canvas".  I guess I could then compare to the
> > first
> > > > atom in te_binbuf and if it's not "pd" then it's
> > the name of
> > > > the abstraction.  But that still doesn't get me
> > the
> > > > dir.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > You could look for the standard help patch
> > location first,
> > > > and if that fails, use c_helpname to solve the
> > issue that
> > > > Matju brought up.
> > > 
> > > That still doesn't help with abstractions, because
> > c_helpname is still
> > > "canvas".
> > 
> > It helps if it first finds the help patch right next to
> > the
> > abstraction's file in the same folder.
> 
> Given a t_object, what's the best way to tell if it's an abstraction,
> and-- if it is-- how can I query its glist members (gl_name and the
> canvasenvironment ce_path?)
> 
> >  Then it
> > wouldn't even check
> > c_helpname.
> >  
> > > Additionally, internal objects don't have a
> > c_externdir in 0.43 vanilla,
> > > but I guess even the vanilla objects are going to be
> > in their own lib so
> > > that won't matter going forward, right?
> > 
> > This is the case where it would fall back to using
> > c_helpname.  Like
> > this:
> > 
> > - build helpfile path using c_externdir, classname and
> > '-help.pd'
> > - else if above file does not exist, try c_helpname
> > - else, use built-in defaults (or not).
> 
> Is there a tcl variable for the built-in default doc directory?

In Tcl/pd-gui:
$::sys_libdir/doc

In C/pd:

char docdir[MAXPDSTRING];
strcat(docdir, sys_libdir);
strcat(docdir, "/doc")

But you probably want to use strncat() to be safe.

.hc