On Jun 23, 2006, at 2:48 PM, Frank Barknecht wrote:
Hallo, Jamie Bullock hat gesagt: // Jamie Bullock wrote:
I second that - I think it would be a very useful feature. However, I think the colour should be quite subtle so as to not look too much like an error (red) or another alert message. Perhaps it should also be an option, so that people can turn 'colour mode' off if they really do just want black and white (or perhaps slightly better performance).
I would prefer something like a tooltip. IIRC I never ran into the problem of taking an argument to still be valid so a different color would just distract me. I mean, *a lot* of objects get a different value from the initialized one soon after a patch was loaded, for example every [f 0]X[+ 1] counter or many [osc~ 440]. And they might even be at their default value again for some time later, so a different color sounds a little bit useless.
Additionally I think, that there is no natural connection between the graphical signal: "object colored differently" and the information to be transported: "default value is overwritten". A tooltip however would directly display the needed information, so the connection between the graphical event and the information displayed is very close.
Personally, I find tooltips far more distracting that just a tiny bit of color on the screen. Only very important things should cause popups on the screen, not just status information. The "loudness" of the interruption should be proportional to the urgency of what is being communicated. As you well described, this is often not urgent info.
And last: When printed - I know Hans doesn't do that, but ... ;) - when printed, all objects should look the same, regardless what value they hold currently.
I only print when someone else makes me ;). On that topic, I did create my NIME poster in Pd, which was printed on A1 paper:
.hc
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¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!