[PD] variable receive objects?

[Jörn Nettingsmeier]

hi *!


i'm playing around with a theatre cue player written around readanysf, 
which i will post on the web as soon as i'm sure it's not going to be 
too embarrassing - need to pick up some more pd idioms first...


so far, i've been able to create a nice gui using graph-on-parent, and 
all gui events are messages sent to receive objects, internally. for 
instance, hitting the "play" bang button will send the bang to 
cfPlayer$0SetPlay.

the idea is that everybody can grab this event, not just the readanysf~ 
object.

now i've painted myself into a corner: i want to create a midi 
controller abstraction which is separate from the player and gui.

to that end, i have added an outlet to my player that contains the 
player's unique id $0. this outlet is connected to the controller 
object, which can now happily send messages back to the player, using 
message boxes:

|inlet| <-- gets the parent player's $0 ID
|set $1(
| (
|; cfPlayer$1SetPlay bang(

that gives me nice separation. the problem is that i want the controller 
object to be able to _listen_ to player events as well as generate them, 
so that the midi controller always reflects the current state, even if 
it was initiated elsewhere, such as via the gui or by loading a playlist 
item.

is there a way to generate a variable receive object similar to a send 
via message box, whose source is defined at load time?
something like this:
|inlet| <-- gets the parent player's $0 ID
|set $1(
| (
|receive cfPlayer$1GetPlay(

which, of course, doesn't work.


or maybe i'm totally up the wrong alley, and someone can suggest a more 
idiomatic way to deal with this issue?

what i want is this:

player doesn't know or care who's controlling it.

controller can (and does) have knowledge of the player event model.

this way, i can easily add OSC or playlist controllers later, keeping 
the main player nice and simple.

best,


jörn


-- 
Jörn Nettingsmeier
Lortzingstr. 11, 45128 Essen, Tel. +49 177 7937487

Meister für Veranstaltungstechnik (Bühne/Studio)
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http://stackingdwarves.net