[PD] variable number of outlets/inlets /dynamic patching

[Michael Zacherl]

I tried something like that about a year ago using dynamic patching.
I wanted to make this work in Pd-Vanilla and ran into the problem that at the time 
the patch is loaded the outlets don't exist.
The abstraction builds up and works but can't be used since the original connections to this abstraction are 
broken because they just don't exist at this point.
My approach to this was then to reverse the process, i.e. to create a big (maximum) number of inlets in 
advance and then remove them according to the needs of the patch.
But I didn't finish this due to time constraints and actually, I didn't really need it so far.

In Pd-extended it could be easier since there are more possibilities to control the init-phase of a just loaded patch.
I think it's in iemlib (Iohannes could chime in) but admittedly I forgot about it, since also there was a lot of discussion wether this should go into Vanilla or not,
and also doing that in extended wasn't my goal.
On the bottom line, according to my experience, I found dynamic patching pretty fragile and it always feels like a "hack" to me.
i.e. changing the functional part of a dynamic abstraction appears like walking on a tight rope where everything could collapse like a house of cards.
It was fun trying it but I suspect that's not the intended application of that technique.  ;-)
Michael.

On 10.8.2012, at 22:28 , Eldad Tsabary wrote:

> Hi,
> How does one create an abstraction with a variable number of outlets (depending on the number of arguments)?
> Thanks
> Eldad





--
noise chasers: http://blauwurf.at 
http://soundcloud.com/noiseconformist