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Re: gtk front end for Pd?
by Dan Wilcox 30 Sep '24

30 Sep '24

How'd y'all, (I will try to keep this short, since I find I really don't read beyond a couple of paragraphs when people start writing long treatises...) 1. Miller I am happy you spent some time looking into this. It is IMO an important direction we have to all consider for the project's future. 2. (Please don't take this personally.) I am a little disappointed that many initial responses to Millers mail were more "you should have done it this way" as opposed to "wow, we are super happy you are interested in this and also spend time making a preliminary tech demonstration". 3. Comparisons are useful but Pd is not SuperCollider. That being said, there are definitely technical solutions to consider form SC but I wouldn't want that to overshadow the discussion and turn into "lets redo Pd core into SC core." ;) 3. IOhannes + Giulio etc did a bunch of work with the refactor but can we admit that has stalled? Perhaps a different approach is warranted? 4. I think Miller's demo code is pretty compact... and probably easy to modify to prove an alternate technical approach. ;) As I have long seen, there can be lots of noise on pd-list but little outcome. I'd rather not see it again here on pd-dev. 5. IHMO I'd also like people to consider libpd. In a dream going way back to PdCon 2026 in NYC, I imagined a future where Pd vanilla and various forks all shared the same Pd core through libpd with GUI handling, customization, etc implemented in some modular way. The dream was that we could *all* leverage the work across various places to benefit everyone and make all of this more sustainable. (ie. I'd rather make work *with* Pd than have Pd my *work*). 6. I think we need a video call on this soon! --- And now to confuse the thread even more, I will to chime in here: > On Sep 30, 2024, at 3:16 PM, pd-dev-request(a)lists.iem.at wrote: > > Suppose we replace "draw X, Y,Z" with "draw button". I think this then > spins out in either of two possible ways: > > (1) the "button" widget on the GUI side now takes care of mouse-hit > detection and making itself flash (and eventually widgets with text can > grab focus, handle copy/paste, etc). In this case the GUI widget has to > maintain a connection with its corresponding object in Pd. This gets > very complicated when, for instance, changing text causes inlets or > outlets to appear, which perhaps on the Pd side the text is getting > hammered by messages from elsewhere at the same time. Distributed > database management, anyone? This is actually how Pd Party and Pd Droid Party work... we intercept the messages sent to the widget via send/receive names and simple respond to accordingly. In this case, there is a separate GUI tree of a sort, but it works fine without sending any actual input messages to the core. Visuals are implemented via CoreGraphics calls: https://github.com/danomatika/PdParty/tree/master/src/gui Honestly, the situation on iOS is *very* easy since the UIKit layout engine handles views within views and hit testing for you. Same for AppKit on macOS. In fact, pretty much *all* modern UI frameworks do this and using it builds down to implementing a callback for mouse enter/exit, move, clicked, etc. Same for touch events (which would be a *very* good idea to add handling of to Pd. -------- Dan Wilcox danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>

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pdgtk demo run issue
by Dan Wilcox 30 Sep '24

30 Sep '24

The pdgtk demo compiled ok on macOS 14.5 with the following Homebrew packages installed: tcl-tk gtk4 I am not able to run it though, pdgtk is complaining about a missing port on invocation: danomatika@danomatika pdgtk % pd -guicmd `pwd`/pdgtk -nrt -stderr z.pd usage: /Users/danomatika/Downloads/pdgtk/pdgtk <port> ^CPd: signal 2 gui socket 0 - closing audio... closing MIDI... ... done. > On Sep 29, 2024, at 12:00 PM, pd-dev-request(a)lists.iem.at wrote: > > Well, I made a stab at doing the same thing with GTK4 - you can grab it > here: http://msp.ucsd.edu/tmp/2024.09.28-pdgtk.tgz . It's about 1200 > lines of code and does only a coupe of very basic things, but it allows > us to guess what it would entail to do the whole job. Of the 325 calls > to pdgui_v[a]mess in the PD source, it takes care of about 10 I think. -------- Dan Wilcox danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>

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Fwd: Re: gtk front end for Pd?
by Miller Puckette 30 Sep '24

30 Sep '24

oops, re-sending.... On 30.09.2024 19:19, Miller Puckette wrote: > On 9/30/24 6:23 PM, Christof Ressi wrote: > >> Suppose we replace "draw X, Y,Z" with "draw button". I think this >> then spins out in either of two possible ways: >>> >>> (1) the "button" widget on the GUI side now takes care of mouse-hit >>> detection and making itself flash (and eventually widgets with text >>> can grab focus, handle copy/paste, etc). In this case the GUI widget >>> has to maintain a connection with its corresponding object in Pd. >>> This gets very complicated when, for instance, changing text causes >>> inlets or outlets to appear, which perhaps on the Pd side the text >>> is getting hammered by messages from elsewhere at the same time. >>> Distributed database management, anyone? >>> >>> (2) it's just a drawing with a tag, not an active widget; perhaps >>> mouse hit detection is done in the GUI but everything else in Pd. In >>> this case it's not a big enough change to make much difference, >>> except for this noisome one: "GUI externals" such as the knob now >>> have to load dynamic libraries into two programs, instead of just one. >>> >>> Depending on which scenario we want to consider (or perhaps this is >>> somehow a false choice) we can go into more detail about this... >> >> These are important points! I think there are two separate concerns: >> >> 1. who is doing the mouse-hit-detection? >> >> 2. who initiates the state changes (e.g. flashing, selection) >> >> For example, it would be possible to do the hit detection on the GUI, >> but still do the state changes on the core. For example, in IOhannes >> draft PR, the "bang" object has an "activate" message that is sent >> whenever the flash state changes: >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/176… >> >> We could move such internal state changes to the GUI, but we don't >> have to if it only complicates things. >> >> However, I would love to move the hit detection to the GUI! Note that >> some GUI frameworks already do hit detection for canvas items. (In >> Qt, graphic items in a QGraphicsScene can receive mouse events!) In >> this case, doing the hit detection on the core is just duplicate >> work. It is also rather expensive since the core only stores the >> objects in a linked list, without spatial indexing, so every mouse >> movement has to potentially iterate over hundreds or even thousands >> gobjects and do rectangle intersection tests until it finds a hit. >> This is not something that you would want to do on the audio thread :) >> >> The same thing applies to selections. The GUI typically already knows >> which objects are selected, so we only need to send this information >> to the core. >> >> If we do the hit detection on the GUI, you are right that we need to >> keep an association between GUI widget and gobject. I think we just >> need to have a hashtable of tag -> gobject on the core; when the core >> receives a mouse event, it looks up the tag in the hashtable and then >> dispatches the event to the corresponding object. If the tag is not >> found, it means that the object has been destroyed in flight and we >> can just ignore the event. >> >> There's one slight problem: some objects need to know *where* the >> user clicked. E.g. a slider with steady-on-click needs to know the >> position to set the new value. This means that the core side has to >> maintain some knowledge about the graphical representation. This does >> not seem to much of a problem to me, but it's something to be aware of. >> > One idea would be to do the hit detection in the GUI and simply pass > Pd the (x,y) coords along with a list of all the GUI objects that got > hit (each with a "fuzziness" quotient so that we can be smart about > disambiguating multiple hits). The only reason I didn't do that > already is because I didn't want to get too deeply involved with > TclTk's canvases. And yes, anything we kick up to the GUI has to be > done both in TCL/TK and in whatever 5 new GUIs are tried out -- that's > one reason I've kept as much of the intelligence as possible down in > Pd land. > > I also hate the way every canvas I've seen does rectangle-selection. > Maybe you know of one I won't hate :) > > And... every widget set I've seen thinks widgets live in rectangles. > The second most important graphical item in Pd is the patch line. > Giving it a widget-style selection method? Disaster. I don't think > patch lines can be TK or GTK r QT or anyone's widgets - imagine how > those bounding rectangles would fill th screen :) > >> --- >> >> Now here's the big catch: what should we do with GUI externals? >> >> Ad 1: externals could define a region that acts as the bounding >> rectangle and which can be filled with drawing commands. This way >> they can partipicate in hit detection on the GUI. >> >> Ad 2: I think state changes for externals have to be handled on the >> core because the external has no access to the GUI features. It does >> not even know which GUI it runs in. >> >> One idea I had was to provide the GUI features as API functions. E.g. >> pdgui_drawrect() to draw a rectangle or pdgui_delay() to start a >> timer, etc. These API functions have to be implemented by the GUI, >> the core would just delegate the calls to the GUI. The external would >> register a callback function that is called whenever the object needs >> to be redrawn. Also, the GUI external could register callbacks for >> mouse events and paintings >> >> One problem I see is that not every GUI can export C functions. For >> example, this probably wouldn't work with a web browser GUI... >> >> The easiest solution is to just keep state changes for external GUI >> objects on the core, i.e. the external needs to send raw drawing >> commands. As an upside, this would make it easier to update existing >> externals as they would just have to update the drawing commands. Of >> course, as I said, sending all these individual commands not only >> increases traffic, it also means that the GUI has to maintain >> individual graphical primitives instead of just a single widget. >> >> Either way, we should provide a stable GUI/drawing API for externals. >> Currently, it's all unofficial. >> >> Thanks to Antoine for mentioning pdlua! I will need to check it out. >> I have already seen people doing some very cool stuff with it. Maybe >> they already have the perfect solution :) >> > I'm also looking at pdlua, which might want to become the official way > to make graphical externs AND to add scripting in a fundamental way to > Pd :) >> --- >> >> I think all of this needs quite a bit of planning and design. We >> already had an online meeting two or three years ago before we >> started the GUI refactoring process. I would suggest to have another >> meeting where we can talk through all the potential issues and get a >> feel for the overall design. >> >> Anyway, I'm very excited that the GUI refactoring is moving forward! >> >> Christof >> >>> >>> cheers >>> >>> M >>> >>> >>> >>> --- >>> pd-dev(a)lists.iem.at - the Pd developers' mailinglist >>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.iem.at/hyperkitty/list/pd-dev@lis… >> >> >> >> >> --- >> pd-dev(a)lists.iem.at - the Pd developers' mailinglist >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.iem.at/hyperkitty/list/pd-dev@lis… > > >

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gtk front end for Pd?
by Miller Puckette 30 Sep '24

30 Sep '24

To Pd dev - I don't know if any of you remember this, but at the first Pd convention in 2004, someone (I forget who) had the idea of replacing the Pd front end by using the tcl parser but making gtk bindings in place of the tk ones. This is not the most streamlined or elegant way to replace Pd's front end, but it has the advantage of easily coexisting with the existing setup. Well, I made a stab at doing the same thing with GTK4 - you can grab it here: http://msp.ucsd.edu/tmp/2024.09.28-pdgtk.tgz . It's about 1200 lines of code and does only a coupe of very basic things, but it allows us to guess what it would entail to do the whole job. Of the 325 calls to pdgui_v[a]mess in the PD source, it takes care of about 10 I think. To proceed further it would be best to replace calls like <canvas-tag> itemconfigure <item-tag> -width 4 with calls to specific purpose-build tcl procedures like pdtk_canvas_configure_line_width, of which there would probably be 100 or so. I haven't done any of this since I'd like to see if the rest of you have thoughts about doing that. Proceeding that way, and perhaps taking care of 10 cases a day, I think this can be done in a month of work (and then years of followup as usual :) I've heard it suggested that ther could be a C API in Pd that would break out all these calls, but I personally think the pdgui_vmess protocol is good enough and is much easier to manage. We could even replace the ASCII strings with a binary format without changing anything outside of s_inter_gui.c on the PD side, a binary-to-ascii converter for the tcl/tk layer, and then do away entirely with the TCL interpreter for the GTK front end, replaing it with a simple function dispatcher.

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crash jack polling
by Marco Matteo Markidis 24 Sep '24

24 Sep '24

Dear all, I am experiencing a strange bug in Pd 0.55.1. When I launch Pd, it crashes. Running it with Valgrind, I got the following message: ==83263== Thread 4: ==83263== Invalid free() / delete / delete[] / realloc() ==83263== at 0x48461EF: free (in /usr/libexec/valgrind/vgpreload_memcheck-amd64-linux.so) ==83263== by 0x1D9539: jack_polling_callback (s_audio_jack.c:164) ==83263== by 0x4A7AECC: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4A7AB87: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4A97F2F: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4B46731: start_thread (pthread_create.c:447) ==83263== by 0x4BC10FF: clone (clone.S:100) ==83263== Address 0x535b180 is 0 bytes inside a block of size 65,536 free'd ==83263== at 0x48461EF: free (in /usr/libexec/valgrind/vgpreload_memcheck-amd64-linux.so) ==83263== by 0x1D9522: jack_polling_callback (s_audio_jack.c:160) ==83263== by 0x4A7AECC: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4A7AB87: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4A97F2F: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4B46731: start_thread (pthread_create.c:447) ==83263== by 0x4BC10FF: clone (clone.S:100) ==83263== Block was alloc'd at ==83263== at 0x48489F3: calloc (in /usr/libexec/valgrind/vgpreload_memcheck-amd64-linux.so) ==83263== by 0x188F16: getbytes (m_memory.c:21) ==83263== by 0x1D94F8: jack_polling_callback (s_audio_jack.c:115) ==83263== by 0x4A7AECC: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4A7AB87: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4A97F2F: ??? (in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjack.so.0.1.0) ==83263== by 0x4B46731: start_thread (pthread_create.c:447) ==83263== by 0x4BC10FF: clone (clone.S:100) ==83263== Running it via gdb, I am getting the following message: Thread 4 "pd" received signal SIGABRT, Aborted. [Switching to Thread 0x7ffff74926c0 (LWP 109587)] __pthread_kill_implementation (threadid=<optimized out>, signo=signo@entry=6, no_tid=no_tid@entry=0) at ./nptl/pthread_kill.c:44 warning: 44 ./nptl/pthread_kill.c: No such file or directory Then, I build Pd tag 0.54.1 commit 0259d003 and everything works fine, while I am getting the same error directly from Pd tag 0.55-0test1 commit 46e3ec2d. I manage to open Pd in callback mode while avoiding polling. Here some details about my setup: Debian 12, Linux kernel 6.10 Jackd2 installed via apt, v 1.9.22 Pd installed via apt, 0.55.1, and then built locally using --enable-debug --enable-jack as flags for the configuration. Source code cloned from git. I also tried to search (randomly) in my local machine where pthread_kill.c is located, without success. libpthread is in: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ . I took a look at recent emails and issues on Github but I do not see anything relevant with this issue. My next step is to compare and study the relevant code (starting from s_audio_jack.c) that differs between 0.54.1 and 0.55.0test1. If someone has some ideas, they are appreciated. Additionally, if useful, I can report an issue on Github. Honestly, I am stuck while understanding if it is an issue on my local machine, such that an issue may be noise on the main repo. Best regards, Marco

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ready for 0.55-1?
by Miller Puckette 19 Sep '24

19 Sep '24

To Pd Dev - What do you think, is it time to put 0.55-1 out? If I don't hear any objections I'll stick out a "test" one Saturday, and maybe the real one in a week or so. cheers M

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Pd 0.55-1 timeline?
by Dan Wilcox 08 Aug '24

08 Aug '24

Howdy all, is there an ETA on 0.55-1? I have been waiting on updating libpd based on the quit message bugfix, among other things. -------- Dan Wilcox danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>

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How can I split code for one object to more than one .c files?
by Alexandros Drymonitis 07 Aug '24

07 Aug '24

I'm trying to split the source of an external I'm writing to more than one .c files but I'm failing. I have two .h and two .c files, where one pair includes all the Pd specific functions, line new() and setup(). In the Makefile (pd-lib-builder), I include the following line: ``` common.sources = src/dense.c ``` This is the .c file where I want to include part of the code. The object compiles. I even get some warnings about this dense.c file, but when I try to load the object, Pd complains that it can't find certain functions that are included in this dense.c file.

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Can I share object pointers?
by Alexandros Drymonitis 23 Jul '24

23 Jul '24

I'm trying to share pointers between different objects so I can access data of one object from another one. I thought of creating a pointer inlet and a pointer outlet and send the pointer of the data structure out the outlet, receive it in another object through the inlet, and use the received pointer to access the data. I'm copying/modifying the simple counter external from IOhannes' pd-externals-HOWTO, but it's not working. Here's the code I have so far: ``` #include "m_pd.h" static t_class *share_pntr_class; typedef struct _share_pntr { t_object x_obj; t_int i_count; t_gpointer obj_pnt; t_outlet *count_out, *addr_out; } t_share_pntr; void share_pntr_bang(t_share_pntr *x) { t_float f=x->i_count; x->i_count++; outlet_float(x->count_out, f); } void get_pntr_val(t_share_pntr *x) { outlet_float(x->count_out, x->obj_pnt.i_count); } void get_pntr(t_share_pntr *x) { outlet_pointer(x->addr_out, x); } void *share_pntr_new(t_floatarg f) { t_share_pntr *x = (t_share_pntr *)pd_new(share_pntr_class); x->i_count=f; pointerinlet_new(&x->x_obj, &x->obj_pnt); x->count_out = outlet_new(&x->x_obj, &s_float); x->addr_out = outlet_new(&x->x_obj, &s_pointer); return (void *)x; } void share_pntr_setup(void) { share_pntr_class = class_new(gensym("share_pntr"), (t_newmethod)share_pntr_new, 0, sizeof(t_share_pntr), CLASS_DEFAULT, A_DEFFLOAT, 0); class_addbang(share_pntr_class, share_pntr_bang); class_addmethod(share_pntr_class, (t_method)get_pntr, gensym("get_pntr"), 0, 0); class_addmethod(share_pntr_class, (t_method)get_pntr_val, gensym("get_pntr_val"), 0, 0); } ``` This is the error I'm getting: ``` src/share_mem_one.c:21:46: error: ‘t_gpointer’ {aka ‘struct _gpointer’} has no member named ‘i_count’ 21 | outlet_float(x->count_out, x->obj_pnt.i_count); ``` I understand why I get this error, but I can't see how I could share data between objects. Perhaps there's some other way to do that?

2 1

64-bit (and/or ARM) Pd change default cosine table?
by Miller Puckette 09 Jun '24

09 Jun '24

OK, so in a few years every new PC will probably have ARM or other RISC architecture. I just made the interesting discovery that, on Mac ARMs, there is a difference, probably a slight decrease, in numerical accuracy in Pd's DSP objects. So we've lost exact compatibliity and only have pretty-good-approximate compatibility. On one piece I tested the divergence is about -100 dB relative to maximum amplitude and in another, which I think has unstable feedback paths, the results are further off. SO... I can now relax my insistence on exact back-compatibility for osc~ and cos~ and ... make them more accurate! I think I should do this for 0.55. Now for the questions: 1. Unfortunately COSTABLESIZE (512) is declared in m_pd.h. Can I change this value (conditionally, increasing it for 64-bit PDs and for some or all ARM architectures) without breaking externals that might use the built-in cosine table? 2. should I make the table size variable, either by a new [declare] flag, or by passing a flag to osc~ and cos~? This could affect run time - I'd want to investigate that. 3. Alternatively, should I just leave COSTABSIZEE at 512 for specific architectures in non-double (Intel for compatibilty, and possibly RPI if there turns out to be a bad performance hit). I'd choose a new one after doing some profiling because at some point increasing table size will lead to bad cache behavior. (Historical note: the number 512 gives a 4096-point table which is the memory page size of the Intel I860, beyond qhich performance dropped by a factor of 10 or more. Recently I tested a 2048-point table, which is 36dB lower-noise, on a bog-standard Intel Linuix machine and... saw no penalty at all). I'm afraid it will take me (and whoever else is interested in this) some time to figure everything out. But I think at 0.55 we're still at a point where we don't have to be extremely strict about numerical reproducibilty on ARM/Macintosh or on Pd-double, and so this seems a good time to attack this. It's been a long-standing problem. cheers Miller

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