Pd-list February 2021

pd-list@lists.iem.at

45 participants
43 discussions

Re: [PD] detect dependencies from patch
by Philip Stone 28 Feb '21

28 Feb '21

I have to say that I have gotten kind of lost in the discussions about loading and declaring external libraries. I would like to embrace the current best practices, but don’t have a solid overview of the whole. Would anybody be willing to write up a summary? I think it would be an invaluable resource for new users (as well as old, like me!) Best, Phil Stone Davis, CA

3 3

list item picker widget
by Roman Haefeli 27 Feb '21

27 Feb '21

Hi I'm curious what types of list item pickers widgets exist in Pd realm. I imagine a widget that lets you select an item from a arbitrary length list that only displays the picked item and thus uses little screen estate when not in active use. I don't know any but the kludgy ones I made myself. I'd be specially interested in patched ones as opposed to externals, though externals would be interesting to know about, too. Maybe there is something made of data structures? Roman

8 36

detect dependencies from patch
by Roman Haefeli 27 Feb '21

27 Feb '21

Hi all Is it possible to detect dependencies from within a patch? Often people report problems without mentioning '... couldn't create' errors. Also, people not so familiar with Pd don't know what library a certain objects belongs to and maybe also don't know how to search for it in "Find externals". I think the ability to give proper feedback at patch loading time would help to address this issue. Roman

5 6

Re: [PD] Best practices for [declare]
by Dan Wilcox 26 Feb '21

26 Feb '21

Honestly, I'm not going to rehash *all* of the discussions about paths, but I do feel like writing some perspective, at least as far as I see it as a user, someone who has taught Pd a bit, and someone who has now worked on it. # Standard Paths What I will point out is that, in most ways, "standard path" is a misnomer in Pd. These we originally added as essentially hardcoded search paths: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/master/src/s_path.c#L243 <https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/master/src/s_path.c#L243> Linux: ~/.local/lib/pd/extra/ ~/pd-externals /usr/local/lib/pd-externals macOS: ~/Library/Pd Windows: %AppData%/Pd %CommonProgramFiles%/Pd And I believe Pd's own bundled "extra" path is one of these as well. "Hey that's great!" says everyone "Now I can just plop things in there!" ...except that things change over the years. The "Library" folder in the macOS user home folder has been hidden by default for some years now. Whoops, easy to find place gone for Mac people. "Oh but they can just put stuff in extra" ...except that "extra" is located INSIDE the macOS .app bundle, so now we need to ask beginners to literally OPEN an app they download and add files INSIDE. Hmmmm not scary at all? For Windows people, where is that again? Kind of obscure for some people as well. Linux makes the most sense, but how many users want a "pd-externals" folder in their home folder and how many beginners are going to navigate to /usr/local/lib/pd-externals? # User Search Paths So moving forward, people can add their own user search paths aka not one of the hardcoded "standard paths" which are mostly obscure / hard to find for beginners. Then they can define their OWN place to plop externals. Great! ...except that beginners have to manually create their own folder, add it to the user search paths, and then it works. How many people do this right on the first go? Maybe not a big deal, but another stumbling block. # Deken As Pd-extended slowy dies out, deken is introduced to help with decentralized externals. Great! We have a tool to help download and install pre-buitd externals. ...but where do we put them? Originally, deken downloaded to the bundled extra folder because it was the only "standard path" known to exist on all systems. Great! ...except macOS people STILL are downloading and installing things INSIDE the Pd .app bundle. So when you delete the .app and replace it with a new version of Pd, you've lost all of your externals and you may not know why if you've only ever downloaded things with deken. Sure, you can specify a deken download location but it's yet another step to ask beginners to have created such a location, add it to their user search path, AND specify that deken should use it. I think the early versions of deken, you had to manually choose the download location on EVERY download. # Documents Directory After prodding from other Pd users on this list who also teach Pd, the Documents Directory was added as a helper to create a user search path for both beginners to use AND provide a default deken download location (~/Documents/Pd/externals) which is also added to the user search paths on creation. Beginners now have a basic place to start with and externals downloaded form deken should be found via declare. The ~/Documents/Pd location was chosen as it mirrors the locations chosen by various other "creative coding" environments such as Processing (~/Documents/Processing) and Arduino (~/Documents/Arduino). If the documents directory is enabled, Pd GUI dialogs also open here by default instead of in the user home folder. This is not a replacement for the previous "standard paths" but sort of a "super user search path" that can be created for you, if you want. If you hate this, you can click NO when it asks or disable it in the Paths preferences, and curse me as I wrote the plugin which provides this functionality. For posterity, the full background on this feature is here: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/152 <https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/152> > On Feb 26, 2021, at 12:58 AM, pd-list-request(a)lists.iem.at wrote: > > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2021 23:48:23 +0000 (UTC) > From: Sebastian Shader <sebfumaster(a)aol.com <mailto:sebfumaster@aol.com>> > To: "pd-list(a)lists.iem.at <mailto:pd-list@lists.iem.at>" <pd-list(a)lists.iem.at <mailto:pd-list@lists.iem.at>> > Subject: Re: [PD] Best practices for [declare] > Message-ID: <2025038600.476357.1614296903882(a)mail.yahoo.com <mailto:2025038600.476357.1614296903882@mail.yahoo.com>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > why is it that using standard install locations isn't encouraged (or rather, why did it move into Documents of all places?) -------- Dan Wilcox @danomatika <http://twitter.com/danomatika> danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>

3 2

Re: [PD] Best practices for [declare]
by Dan Wilcox 26 Feb '21

26 Feb '21

(reposting with correct subject line) Perhaps [declare] needs an order index argument, similar to [gemhead #] to clearly specify order when required? > On Feb 25, 2021, at 12:00 PM, pd-list-request(a)lists.iem.at <mailto:pd-list-request@lists.iem.at> wrote: > >> Perhaps for use with "nested" code, use of abstractions, possibly in >> other abstractions etc. >> > yes and it would be better readable than a long list of "-path ..."s with > linebreaks ... -------- Dan Wilcox @danomatika <http://twitter.com/danomatika> danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>

3 3

mpeparse
by Ricky Graham 25 Feb '21

25 Feb '21

Is anyone working on an MPE e.g., [mpeparse] object for Pd? ~R

1 0

Re: [PD] Pd-list Digest, Vol 191, Issue 51
by Dan Wilcox 25 Feb '21

25 Feb '21

Perhaps [declare] needs an order index argument, similar to [gemhead #] to clearly specify order when required? > On Feb 25, 2021, at 12:00 PM, pd-list-request(a)lists.iem.at wrote: > >> Perhaps for use with "nested" code, use of abstractions, possibly in >> other abstractions etc. >> > yes and it would be better readable than a long list of "-path ..."s with > linebreaks ... -------- Dan Wilcox @danomatika <http://twitter.com/danomatika> danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com/> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com/>

1 0

Best practices for [declare]
by Philip Stone 25 Feb '21

25 Feb '21

peterparker(a)fastmail.com<mailto:peterparker@fastmail.com> writes: >Don't know if >https://puredata.info/docs/faq/how-do-i-install-externals-and-help-files >is up to date and of help for you, but you might wanna check it and get >back with more specific questions and possibly a new email subject. >> I have to say that I have gotten kind of lost in the discussions about loading and declaring external libraries. I would like >>to embrace the current best practices, but don?t have a solid overview of the whole. Would anybody be willing to write >>up a summary? (Hope this is a better subject line). That very page has an expired link to a Google drive tutorial which sounds like just the thing I was talking about, so I’d say that it’s not up to date. I’d love to see best practices for [declare] blended into it. The helpfile for [declare] is good, but how’s a newbie even supposed to know to use the [declare] object in the first place? I’m just asking for an overview, is all. Best, Phil Stone Davis, CA

4 6

pdogg windows
by Rémy Sax 24 Feb '21

24 Feb '21

Hey there Is there a "pdogg" version for windows 10 (64bit)? Thanks and all the best Rémy

3 3

linux and midi
by Allister Sinclair 22 Feb '21

22 Feb '21

Hi, How do you deal with midi in pd in linux (Ubuntu Studio) ? I use alsamidi and alsaconnect to initiate midi ins and outs. Used [midiin] with no problem until pd 0.5.1 . Now [midiin] skips some data when too much midi is getting in (moving several faders/pots fast), which makes it impossible to route midi messages. So I tried using only [ctlin] and [notein], but while solving this issue, they bring another problem which I guess is more of a linux issue: channel/port number, changes randomly after each system reboot, which is a nightmare. -- Allister

3 3

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

Pd-list February 2021