Actually, in my OS X installer I did change quite a few of the help files to *.help (at least the ones in 5.reference). In fact, it's quite easy to do because there are plenty of scripts out there to take care of removing the prepended "help-", removing the appended ".pd", and appending "-help.pd".

You can find scripts in /Library/Scripts/Finder Scripts. You can do a batch job to every file that starts with "help-" in a directory. It makes converting these files really easy.

sb

Message: 1 Cc: pd-dev@iem.at From: Hans-Christoph Steiner hans@eds.org Subject: Re: [PD-dev] pd interface questions Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 12:54:24 -0500 To: mike2005@acc.ocad.on.ca

On Mar 30, 2005, at 1:42 PM, mike2005@acc.ocad.on.ca wrote:

...

The 0.38.3 version of pd is a much nicer install than the .37 version, especially on OS X because it keeps everything in one place inside a .app file that the end user simply double clicks to launch. The older version throws files all over the place. Thanks to those who did the work on this.

There is a disadvantage to the new version though, in that it isn't possible to search for pd objects using the standard OS find utility because it can't search inside of .app files. I can open the .app but I can't search it. This could be solved by integrating a search function into pd itself. As a new user it is difficult to find objects and their documentation without the ability to search.

Is this a suggestion worthy of developer attention?

Very much so, and has been a hot topic with developers recently. Check the Pd-dev IRC meeting logs for more info:

http://puredata.org/community/IRC

...

Also because the "5 Reference" section contains listings which all start with "help-" you must type at least six characters before you can get to the point in the menu where you want be. If they were structured like the following it would be easier to get around:

acoustics-help.pd

Where do I find help-fiddle~.pd? It isn't in the "5 Reference" section of the help menu where I would expect to find it. In fact I cannot find any reference to fiddle in any of the help menus, yet I can make the object and control click to get the help. As a new user I don't understand the logic of the help menu.

*-help.pd is the new standard. No one has done the grunt work of converting the old help-*.pd files to the new standard...

.hc