[PD] detect dependencies from patch

[Roman Haefeli]

Thanks for that concise write-up. I think dealing with externals was
never so stringent before as it is now. What I really appreciate is
that going with defaults all along creates a sensible setup. 

Roman

On Thu, 2021-02-25 at 10:18 +0100, Dan Wilcox wrote:
> Howdy Phil,
> 
> We are moving away from the "extra" folder and additional "standard
> paths" like ~/.pd-externals in favor user search paths for most use
> cases. This requires specifying folders, so a helper "Documents
> Directory" was added, mainly for beginners and students but I find it
> generally useful. For those that don't, it can simply be ignored and
> disabled.
> 
> I think the info on this was updated in the included Pd manual by
> Alex, but off the top of my head the simplest explanation is the
> following:
> 
> If not enabled, enable the Pd Documents Directory:
> 
>     Preferences -> Path... -> Pd Documents Directory -> Reset
> 
> There should now be a ~/Documents/Pd/externals folder which is also
> added to the user search paths.
> 
> Put external library folders in there, deken also downloads to here
> by default.
> 
> Note: You can of course use your own user search path and set the
> path deken downloads to, in which case the following info still
> applies.
> 
> You can now find externals in this folder using [declare]. If you
> have an external called "extname" in the following folder:
> 
>     ~/Documents/Pd/externals/extname
> 
> It should be found by Pd with: [declare -path extname -lib extname]
> 
> The -path argument specifies search paths while -lib specifies a
> location to try to load compiled externals, so some externals may
> require both while abstraction-only externals should only require
> -path. More complicated externals like Gem which also need to load
> addition dynamic libs should also work, although may require
> additional steps / folder placement.
> 
> Note: once compiled externals are found and loaded, they cannot be
> unloaded or reloaded.
> 
> Also, without using [declare], objects can be found in the user
> search paths via prepending the external's folder name: 
> 
>     [extname/foobar]
> 
> Last, if the path given to declare starts with a . or .. (ie. it's a
> relative path), the search mechanism only looks *relative* to the
> patch and does not look in further user search or standard paths.
> This should help encapsulation of certain projects.
> 
>     [declare -path ./extname]
> 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 488 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/attachments/20210225/74e99bb3/attachment.sig>