(I've had this sitting my Drafts box for a while, its time to send it out...)
In the process of making my "Solitude" composition (http://at.or.at/hans/solitude ), I came up with a few ideas for improvements on Pd's data structures. Overall I found it to be a quite nice composition environment and with some not so major changes, it could be quite usable as is.
- a way to delete scalars
The biggest improvement would be the addition of a method to delete scalars. This would allow a number of things currently not possible. A simple example would be to have a cursor and minute markers that only exists when the score is being played. A really great example would be the ability to show and hide parts of the graphical representation. For example, each voice could be saved to an individual file, then with a toggle, it would be displayed or hidden.
- a way to raise/lower scalars so you can get to scalars that are blocked by others
This is minor, but it would be handy to have a "send-to-back" function, so that you could get to scalars that are completely obscured by another. This could be implemented using something like a Shift-click, a menu item, and/or a key command.
- full color support (8-bits for each R, G, B)
If the data structures support standard 24-bit color, then color could be a much more usable dimension. The current scheme is a bit odd, and is quite limited in terms of the range of colors it can represent. The hard part of this is then how to represent the color as a number. You can't do standard hex with Pd because it would then be interpreted as a symbol if letter digits were present (a-f) and a float if no letter digits where present. Perhaps the most straightforward way to handle it would be to make one float for each R, G, and B. The graphic design standard seems to be 0-255, but since Pd is float-based 0-1 might make sense. And 0-1 would be easy enough to/from 0-255.
.hc
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"Looking at things from a more basic level, you can come up with a more direct solution... It may sound small in theory, but it in practice, it can change entire economies."
- Amy Smith