i would have to say the biggest issue that i have with PD is docs. MAX's help files are amazing.. if PD had help files like that there would be a lot less difference between PD and MAX in the learning phase.
matt.
----- Original Message ----- From: "mark" mark@junklight.com To: "'Marc Lavallée'" odradek@videotron.ca; "'pd-list'" pd-list@iem.kug.ac.at Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 5:59 PM Subject: RE: [PD] PD usability
If it where me that wanted to make PD more "producty" (technical term that :-) - and its not - I already have enough joy with this at work with users/support/testing/load testing/a development team/a dept. head/etc. - Then I would try to establish a small group of volunteers to do the work. I am sure the rest of the community would support such an effort if it didn't mean much work on their part.
The key areas I see as being vital are;
installer - not always an easy job 'cos of the platform thing (and the quality of the tools). As a guide I have had a team member put in about 6 man months over the last two years on our installer.
Config - midi/audio selection would have to be a preferences dialog for the more casual user. I guess this would have implications on how PD starts up too.
GUI - you can argue its fine until you are blue in the face - people are used to and expect pretty interfaces - if you want minimalist/functional then it needs to be *designer* minimalist functional (think Peter Saville/factory records). Its just the way it goes.
Docs - there needs to be a reference manual. Again you can argue about it all you like - not having one means that the beginner has to do a lot more work to get into the product.
Support - who is going to provide support to people. What happens when the mailing list is full of people going - "it does't work on my pc..why?" or "I NEED feature X..why can't you make it do that"
Don't get me wrong - PD is just great as it is as far as I am concerned
- what
I am talking about is making it accessible to a wider audience. It will grow larger as time goes by and by having a high level of knowledge needed for entry we make life easier for ourselves.
Again - not trying to pour water on ideas but if you want to make PD accessible to a wider audience you need to consider what is involved
cheers
mark
-----Original Message----- From: pd-list-admin@iem.kug.ac.at [mailto:pd-list-admin@iem.kug.ac.at] On Behalf Of Marc Lavallée Sent: 12 February 2003 22:37 To: 'pd-list' Subject: RE: [PD] PD usability
Le mer 12/02/2003 à 16:59, mark a écrit :
Sorry to be blunt about this but I did say I had my day job hat on. :-)
I actually resigned from a well paid job in a university center because I was unable to bring artists to use free software and be more responsible. I had to manage a bunch of projects, buy computers and softwares, and program "art". It was a stupid and impossible mandate, because artists (especially students) must do their own stuff, not always rely on programmers to hold the mouse for them. Of course, most artists were asking for Macs/Max/MSP/Jitter, leaving little money for anything else, including humain brain juice.
So for me, a "better" PD would have been cool. I won't accept such a job unless artists agrees to change their tools and their attitude toward technology. But we need to help them a little bit, or I might never work with them again.
-- Marc
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