On Thu, 6 Jul 2006, Frank Barknecht wrote:
As I see it, this is another case where some way to detect changes of data in a ds-instance would help a great deal. There already is the starting for this available with the [struct] object's outlet, that sends a pointer, if an instance is selected in Edit mode. One could do all math or list or symbol processing that Pd is capable of with this pointer using normal Pd objects. However there still is no way to detect a change outside of edit mode and no way to detect changes through other means (though these originate somewhere in Pd anyways and thus they can be intercepted from there.)
I want this *and* the ability to make custom renderers for those structures. I mean, one should be able to make an abstraction that plays the same role as [drawpolygon] yet uses [drawpolygon] as its implementation, so that e.g. if I want to draw stuff in polar or log coords (or anything else) I don't have to store both the "internal coordinates" and the "apparent coordinates" in the object. The system should also allow structures to respond to clicks in a user-defined way which could be included in [drawpolygon]-like abstractions, or as a separate object.
Those are again the same MVC ideas as developed at XEROX-PARC in the 1970's and which are getting popular in GUI design and web design these years (finally).
A way of detecting changes is central to MVC and is called Observable/Observer or Publish/Subscribe. However, MVC is more than just that.
_ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ... | Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju | Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada