Actually, if pd open did take an optional argument, this would be easy to handle ala:

* the Audio menu items could send the open command with the extra arg so selecting the audio test paths is only opened once
* the helpbrowser detects double clicks and calls pd open, I think it would make sense to always open things single from the browser, you can always double click the directory itself and launch things via the file explorer if you want multiples from there

All other calls to pd open should omit the extra argument and behave as before. I'd see this as a simple improvement for new users.

On Sep 24, 2018, at 5:55 AM, pd-list-request@lists.iem.at wrote:

Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2018 13:32:48 -0700
From: Miller Puckette <msp@ucsd.edu>
To: katja <katjavetter@gmail.com>
Cc: Pd-list <pd-list@lists.iem.at>
Subject: Re: [PD] multiple instances of a patch forbidden in 0.49,
why?
Message-ID: <20180923203248.GD30397@ucsd.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

actually, it's probably not a serious problem that one can multiply open help
files (if one really wants to), so probably it's not worth fixing this.

On the other hand, a naive user on a Mac would expect that clicking on a
file in the "finder", if Pd already has the file open, would show the user
the open file instead of opening another copy.

Supposing the "open" menu called "pd open" with the third nonzero argument,
but if "pd open" acted as it does now so that one could programmatically
open multiple copies of a patch, would this permit you to do what you're
planning?  (I think that this would be patch-level back compatible).

cheers
Miller

--------
Dan Wilcox
@danomatika
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com