[PD] Revision of Standard Paths (was Re: New users and external path struggles)

[Alexandre Torres Porres]

2017-07-30 15:56 GMT-03:00 Miller Puckette <msp at ucsd.edu>:

> I think the way forward is to somehow get the "path" mechanism to do what
> people are asking for.
>

Fair enough, and I see that would mean getting the mechanism to: *A)* Integrate
with Pd's Help Browser; B*)* Integrate somehow to [declare] and *C)* Allow
3 levels of locality (1- Application-specific, 2- User-specific and 3-
Global).

Out of these, I find "C)"  very complicated to deal with. And it also opens
to the question: how to deal with the current "standard path" structure?
Removing or replacing the current structure seems like a major overhaul.

So here's my analysis/revision.

I always meant "standard path" to refer to "stuff distributed with Pd"


That seems to be what the "extra" folder is, referred here as the
"application-specific standard path". Let's keep it as it is then, we can
just refer to it as the "standard path", and detach the other two scopes
(namely *user* and *global* ones) from this concept.

It seems the "standard path" concept grew to encompass these two other
scopes (*user* and *global*), which would actually correspond to your
concept of what the "path" mechanism should be (a place to point to
libraries). Let's then incorporate them into this revision of the path
mechanism.

By the way, it's the common practice to have both of these scopes
(user/global) clearly defined and hardcoded, to point libraries not part of
the software distribution. Let's stop calling them "standard paths", and
treat them as "*default paths*" for both user and global in the "path
mechanism".

So, besides newly incorporated "defult paths", what did the "path
mechanism" already have? A freely defined path for the *user* only.
therefore, bringing them all together gets us with a default *user* and
*global* path, that Pd sees out of the box, plus the ability to define
other folders for the *user* scope.

So, what kind of overhaul am I proposing? Basically none, just a new way to
look and reinterpret what we have.

And I think it'd be reasonably easy to expand the functionality of user
defined paths to do what we are asking for, meaning: *A)* Integrate with
Pd's Help Browser and *B)* Integrate somehow to [declare].

Who's following me?

cheers
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