--- On Mon, 1/4/10, Hans-Christoph Steiner hans@at.or.at wrote:
From: Hans-Christoph Steiner hans@at.or.at Subject: Re: Using "all_about_x" patches as abstractions in help files To: "Jonathan Wilkes" jancsika@yahoo.com Cc: "Pd List" pd-list@iem.at Date: Monday, January 4, 2010, 2:03 AM
Glad to see you thinking about improving the docs :) We tried the abstraction thing before, but got in trouble because so much stuff got loaded when loading a single help patch, then there were also seemingly endless loops of loading.
Well it wouldn't be a problem if you're only using abstractions in this manner in help patches and not in the "all_about_x" patches. But I guess this restriction means the method doesn't scale well.
I'd prefer to get pddplink working well and use it throughout. It seems to be the best approach, provided it works. Can you describe the problem with pddplink or provide an example patch?
I don't think pddplink likes spaces in the filename.
Ok, in windows xp open the pd browser and in the examples/pddp/, click on pddplink-test-01.pd. All the links should work. Now go in and change the name of the containing folder from "pddp" to "pddp bug". Now when you open that same patch, you'll get a tk error message for every [pddplink] object (excluding the ones with the -box flag).
But I don't understand why I don't see the error message in the first place, because pd/doc/examples/pddp/ is in the "Program Files" folder.
-Jonathan
.hc
On Jan 3, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
Currently, the help patches in the reference folder
have two ways of
referring to the "all_about_x" patches:
- comments in the form of
"docs/reference/all_about_x
- pddplink
The first option requires the user to open the patch
manually, which is
klunky because the last patch opened is probably
different than the
reference folder (not to mention the fact that the
reference folder has
hundreds of patches in it). The second option
currently stinks because
pddplink is buggy (at least on winxp: for example, I
can't open the
link listed in ctlin-help.pd).
But what about using the "all_about_x" patches as
abstractions in the
relevant help patches? So for example: under the
"more_info" heading in
float-help.pd, instead of the comment
"all_about_data-types.pd", just have
[all_about_data-types], which the user can open with
one click. Those
patches aren't particularly complex, so it shouldn't
affect load time of
the help patches very much (I think), but it would
greatly improve
navigation. And unlike pddplink, typos would be
obvious because the abstraction wouldn't create.
What do people think?
-Jonathan
¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!