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

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Jul 16, 2011, at 12:11 PM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

> On Mon, 11 Jul 2011, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>
>> This leads to the question: should tooltip messages be per-instance  
>> or per-class?  It could easily just be a field with a standard name  
>> in each object's struct, then it would be a simple per-class  
>> implementation.  Having an 'assist' method means that the external  
>> writer can decide whether the string is per-class or per-instance.
>
> Yes... whichever is appropriate. But the default assist-method  
> should be designed so that in most cases, externals don't need to  
> have a custom assist-method.
>
>>> 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,
>
> A default assist-method needs to be storing data somewhere, and it  
> cannot automatically pickup inlet names from anywhere in an  
> external's source code. It has to be stored in some data- 
> structures... For example, in both t_class and t_inlet (for nonproxy  
> inlets).
>
>> This is an important point that Jonathan brings up: if we add an  
>> 'assist' method, that could mess up anything that ever sent a  
>> message that started with 'assist'.
>
> Then just do it like it is for savefn and propertiesfn. You see, it  
> doesn't have to be something that goes through class_addmethod. The  
> 'assist' symbol issue is not an argument against defining an assist- 
> method because it could be a field named assistfn directly in t_class.


If you care about getting it into Vanilla, then Miller said he didn't  
like modifying t_class.  But I suppose someone could lobby him to  
change his mind.

.hc

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