So, I got a tutorial on installing externals that says standard paths* is where to put them - check it here on page 6 (got it from Pd's FAQ, btw). My view is reinforced by [declare]'s object design, which loads externals/libs from there with the -stdpath & -stdlib flags. Who agrees/disagrees? and if standard paths* are not good for externals, what they good for? 

My concern is to understand current Pd's state in order to revise my tutorial regarding canonical practices for managing/installing externals. Let's please keep this focus and not break the discussion, such as what would be desirable to happen for Pd in the future, we could have separate threads for that.

Thanks

* Standard paths defined as 3 standard search paths for Pd: A) Application Specific; B) User specific; C) Global (where "A" is the "extra" folder, "B" & "C" are defined for each OS). "A" is only seen by the Pd application it's in. "B" is seen by all Pds for a user in a machine. And "C" is seen by All Pds / all users in a machine.