Alex from Idoia said this at Thu, 30 Jan 2003 16:04:49 +0000:

Thanks a lot for that. I think I understand the way it works, the ~/.tcshrc is a file read by the shell when starting up, then it loads certain preferences like some alias created previously, is not it ?

Yes. Exactly. For more info on Mac OS X's unix side, I suggest some things like: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/macosxian/ http://www.macosxhints.com/ http://www.freebsd.org/projects/newbies.html#unix http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html

Then the ~/.pdrc is kind of the same but for pd, the way pd loads up a special configuration as it loads up. a few question however: -rc in the name of both files stands for resources ?

more or less. It might actually be something like "runtime configuration", but the idea is more or less the same.

-what stand before maybe the application is relative like tcsh stands for the basic shell on OSX ?

yes. and the dot ('.') means that it is a "special", hidden file.

-the line I put in the pdrc file are options for pd. they are listed in the doc, but some of the ones you gave me does not appear in the doc, is there a complete list somewhere ?

Type: pd -help

The extra commands: -cordcolor [col] -- change color of audio wires, with opt hex #rrggbb spec -guishadow -- add discrete shadows to basic objects

are part of the "unofficial" part of the CVS distribution. (The devel_0_36 branch that people talk about).

These questions, by the way, are very helpful... collecting the answers into a FAQ would be even more helpful to those who come after you... :)

I will terminate if you don' t mind by asking you some simple things about pd: the version I downloaded is the version 0.36.0. It contains the folders extra and obj. In which one should I put my externals ? What is the folder man and port audio ?

externals and abstractions should be put in 'extra'... but with the new "-path" command in the .pdrc, you can now put externals and abstractions in a "Library/pd" that you create.

Thanks a lot for your time.

I'm hoping that if we can get good answers to these questions, we can pre-empt them for new beginners. A lot of Mac OS X people seem to be appearing lately, so it's best to offer them as much as possible.

A good algorithm for getting midi to work, written for people who are unfamiliar with the command-line, would be *very* helpful, as it's something I haven't been able to explain satisfactorily.

adam

On Thursday, January 30, 2003, at 02:54 pm, Adam Lindsay wrote:

...

Alex from Idoia said this at Thu, 30 Jan 2003 13:49:52 +0000:

...

Hello, In the pd doc, is said that we can create an alias for pd to avoid to type the complete path everytime we open a terminal window. It is also said to add the alias command line in the ~/.tcshrc file to keep track of the alias for further uses. Is that something to do with an alias.mine file ? How to create a such file ? I could not find the ~/.tcshrc.

You can create such a file by opening the terminal, and typing:

pico ~/.tcshrc

and then once you are in the editor, by typing:

alias pd '/usr/local/pd/bin/pd' # and/or set path = ( "/usr/local/pd/bin" $path )

Close the file with Ctrl-x, answering the question with 'y', and accepting the filename with 'RETURN'. While you're at it, you can create a .pdrc file, by typing:

pico ~/.pdrc

and again, once in the editor, enter some useful stuff like:

-listdev -rt -guishadow -cordcolor -path ~/Library/pd -path /Library/pd -path /usr/local/pd/extra

Again close the file by keying Ctrl-x y RETURN.

You won't be able to see these files in the finder normally, nor will you be able to create them using a normal MacOSX GUI- driven app, since these are "hidden" files.

I hope that these instructions are clear enough to get you started. More information on these "dotfiles" (and a more complex but "correct" way of setting up this configuration) are available in the terminal by typing:

more /usr/share/tcsh/examples/README

Cheers, adam

--

Adam T. Lindsay atl@comp.lancs.ac.uk Computing Dept, Lancaster University +44(0)1524/594.537 Lancaster, LA1 4YR, UK Fax:+44(0)1524/593.608 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-