Another option is an object like [clone] which instantiates for multichannel handling only... could simply be called [mc~] and take specific creation names for functionality, otherwise creates the objects for mc handling, so works like [text] etc:

[mc 4 osc~] -> creates 4 [osc~] instances inside

[mc pack 4] -> unpacks 4 channels

[mc unpack] -> packs 4 channels

[mc tap 1] -> taps single channel 1 out of the 4 channels

...

On Jan 23, 2023, at 6:33 PM, pd-dev-request@lists.iem.at wrote:

Message: 1 Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2023 09:02:33 -0300 From: Alexandre Torres Porres <porres@gmail.com mailto:porres@gmail.com> To: Roman Haefeli <reduzent@gmail.com mailto:reduzent@gmail.com> Cc: pd-dev@lists.iem.at mailto:pd-dev@lists.iem.at Subject: Re: [PD-dev] pack~/unpack~ (was Re: multichannel signals, preliminary support) Message-ID: <CAEAsFmiwCAPQn-4LUiJLMKT3KDVvPzLiqsuQK4W4mtzD657_iw@mail.gmail.com mailto:CAEAsFmiwCAPQn-4LUiJLMKT3KDVvPzLiqsuQK4W4mtzD657_iw@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I actually do like pack~/unpack~ a lot, because they have control counterparts and also MAX uses something similar but prepends 'mc.' to it, so [mc.pack~] and [mc.unpack~] are exactly what [pack~] and [unpack~] do!

On the other hand, if we really want to avoid this collision badly, maybe we could use a similar convention to specify an object that is multichannel aware, something quite new in the pd world. I'm not saying we should use the same 'mc.' convention. I know using "." is not much common in the Pd world, but in ELSE I use it and have plans to add many multichannel aware externals that would make things simpler and while we don't have our [clone] solution for internal and external objects, like a muti channel [dac~] object called [dac.mc~]. I like it better that the mc comes later as objects would be alphabetically next to their multichannel version. This would also prevent people from thinking it's an external from Cyclone that mimics the original.

So... what about [pack.mc~] and [unpack.mc~]?

maybe just [packmc~] and [unpackmc~] as well... but I like "."

cheers

-------- Dan Wilcox @danomatika http://twitter.com/danomatika danomatika.com http://danomatika.com/ robotcowboy.com http://robotcowboy.com/