From: "Miller Puckette" :
You can't selectively clear part of a window... I'm curious why you want to though... are you by any chance using the deadly "namecanvas" object? I'll do anything to get people to stop using that one...
No, I don't use namecanvas (pd-messages are ok). I attempt to do some gui stuff with templates. It's possible to clear the data window and object list with a "clear" message to the window, but in a graphic interface, it's usefull to be able to delete or redraw some objects, without clearing it all and redrawing.
(I still don't master the templates terminology well. In what follows, a "graphic object" is a displayed scalar.)
Another thing is to get some fixed objects (that you can't modify with the mouse) in the data window. With pd-0.34.2, I noticed it was possible to add this kind of objects (like a drawpolygon object with fixed values) by sending a message ("pd-template obj X Y ... ... ...") to a template window. The data window was automagically updated, the same if I removed the drawpolygon object box (a bit tricky, but better than nothing :).
Last days I spent some time with templates on pd 0.35, "struct" is a good thing (and all the related bugfixes too) but actually I can do less than before (may be some of it is on your todo list).
I know that a more complete gui-toolkit is not a priority for Pd, but here is my little wish-list:
the mouse in the data window, but which you can set parameters to from the patch
the front layer.
regards nicolas