Thanks for your explanations, Mathieu! I can't seem to find .pdrc (i'm on mac osX 4.8). The org.puredata.plist opens in the property list editor, seems to be an .xml file. The "startup flags" from the "startup preferences" (as accessed from pd) show up labelled "flags" (class: string). Interestingly enough, arguments that I entered there before and deleted again, were still there too, labelled "path" (class: string). They were the paths to my "abstractions" and other people's "pdstuff", deleted because everything still loaded (now i understand because they were still in the file, though i didn't see them in pd's prefs window), leading me to the conclusion that folders within a folder also load... What's the scoop on that one exactly? All libs are specified in the prefs, rather than just including the path to ../extra/, but then files from subfolders in the the libs _are_ loaded, aren't they? And then [bonk~], which lives in a "bonk~" subfolder in "extra", does load, without being pointed to by a path. After deleting the paths to my "abstractions" and "pdstuff" in the Prop List Ed, with no visible changes in the "startup flags" from the "startup preferences" in pd, while leaving a path to their parent folder, "abstractions" nor "pdstuff" showed up anymore. Also, i had pd live in the applications folder, then moved (copied) it to a pd folder in the app folder. In the org.puredata.plist in the PLE, the paths to libraries for both are included. Others, eg freeverb, hcs, had only the old path: to pd in the app folder. After some cleaning up (correcting the paths, deleting duplicates), everything works, though my changes are not reflected in the preferences as accessed from pd -- "startup flags" now have no paths specified, though in the .xml file i specified "abstractions" and "pdstuff" to be loaded on startup, and they do. Would the .pdrc way make things more transparent?
so indeed, hyperlearning's continuing. not only taking the time of hanging out in the pub, but also of writing the music for a gig on thursday... thank heavens i'm an improviser ;)