Hi,

tim vets wrote:

I (and from what I read, some other people too) would like the help browser to be resizable.

I submitted a patch on sf for that a few weeks ago. It proves useful for me, because I use a tiling window manager (notion/ion3). One thing I have to add is an horizontal scrollbar, because sometimes 1024 pixels wide is not enough (try Pure-Data/examples/rradical/showcase/impl/).

Cheers, Charlot

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On 2011-05-04 18:18, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

Using Pd-extended 0.43.1-20110430 on Mac OS X I don't see this behvaior with Gem or gridflow. The helpbrowser.tcl code is the same between pure-data and pd-extended.

the Gem/GF auto-adding was an extrapolation of what might happen.

this is how i do trigger the problem: $ pd -path /usr/lib/pd/extra/Gem -lib Gem

attached is the image i get.

fgmasdr IOhannes

On May 4, 2011, at 1:24 PM, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

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On 2011-05-04 18:18, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

...

Using Pd-extended 0.43.1-20110430 on Mac OS X I don't see this
behvaior with Gem or gridflow. The helpbrowser.tcl code is the same between pure-data and pd-extended.

the problem also appears with "cxc" (as shipped with debian) as soon as the user adds /usr/lib/pd/extra/cxc to their search paths, you get both cxc/ and all cxc-abstractions in the rootwindow of the help-browser.

the problem also appears with Pd-0.43.1-extended-debian-squeeze-i386.

afaik, it is perfectly valid to add the path to a library to your
search paths (even if your personal workflow might be different), as a matter of fact, this was the suggested way to load libdirs in PdX until recently. it seems weird that this will now degrade the usability of
the help browser.

This problem stems from the fact that -path and -lib have been muddled
in concept. To make it clear, -path should should set a folder to
load libraries and externals from, and -lib should load a library into
the global namespace. If we are treating abstractions like full
fledged objects, then loading a library with abstractions should also
load the abstractions into the global space with you do -lib. That's
what the libdir loader/format solves.

You choose to ignore the libdir loader, but its in Debian too. If one
runs the below command, the cxc would load as a library and the
abstractions would be treated the same:

pd -lib libdir -lib cxc

IMHO, loaders should not need to be loaded like a library, but should
instead go into pd/startup where they would be automatically loaded
when pd starts. This is how Pd-extended 0.43 does it. Then you could
have a library of C binaries, abstractions, lua files, Tcl files, etc.
You could load it like "pd -lib mymixedlib" and all of the objects
would be loaded into the namespace more or less the same way.

fgamdr IOhannes

PS: very minor sidenote $ diff /usr/lib/pd-extended/tcl/helpbrowser.tcl /usr/lib/puredata/tcl/helpbrowser.tcl Files /usr/lib/pd-extended/tcl/helpbrowser.tcl and /usr/lib/puredata/tcl/helpbrowser.tcl differ

The size of the difference is meaningful, don't hide the text of the
diff! It is only to add the "Manuals" section. There is no
difference in functionality.

.hc

“We must become the change we want to see. - Mahatma Gandhi

By the way, a couple of minor but annoying issues. Regardless of what is included in the "root" of the help browser and what is not, folders should be grouped on the top before files, and not mixied with files in alphabetical order. Also, the alphabetical sorting should be case insensitive.

2011/5/5 yvan volochine yvan.pd@gmail.com:

sorry if I miss some of the basics in pd-loading-libs or if this was discussed before but wouldn't it make sense to have a difference between what is added to 'path' and what goes into the HelpBrowser ? (i.e. -lib loads externals, help, ... and goes into HelpBrowser and -path adds whatever to the patch namespace but not to HelpBrowser)

it's weird to have my music directories on the top of HelpBrowser.

0.02$

cheers, _y

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The 'pd -path' and 'pd -lib' things are a bit muddled conceptually the
way they are sometimes used. The concept should be something like:

-path - a folder to load libraries, externals, etc. from -lib - load a library into the global namespace.

IMHO, a library loaded with 'pd -lib' should do eveything needed to be
fully loaded. gridflow has done this for a while, libdir is another
approach. Gem seems to have the code to do this, but its not always
enabled. I think this should always be enabled with Gem too.

.hc

On May 4, 2011, at 6:42 PM, yvan volochine wrote:

sorry if I miss some of the basics in pd-loading-libs or if this was
discussed before but wouldn't it make sense to have a difference
between what is added to 'path' and what goes into the HelpBrowser ? (i.e. -lib loads externals, help, ... and goes into HelpBrowser and - path adds whatever to the patch namespace but not to HelpBrowser)

it's weird to have my music directories on the top of HelpBrowser.

0.02$

cheers, _y

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                         kill your television

On May 4, 2011, at 5:47 PM, Paul Brossier wrote:

On Wed, May 04, 2011 at 12:18:04PM -0400, Hans-Christoph Steiner
wrote:

...

Using Pd-extended 0.43.1-20110430 on Mac OS X I don't see this behvaior with Gem or gridflow. The helpbrowser.tcl code is the same between pure-data and pd-extended.

How do you start pd to load Gem?

Removing '-path /usr/lib/pd/extra/Gem', the help browser behaves as expected.

cheers, piem

Check Gem_addownpath() in src/Base/GemSetup.cpp. If Gem's ./configure
finds s_stuff.h, it should enable this. This is something like what
gridflow does too. Then pd -lib Gem also puts path/to/Gem/ abstractions in the path also.

.hc

...

.hc

On May 3, 2011, at 4:54 AM, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

...

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while preparing a debian package of Gem, i stumbled across a help-browser weirdness, which i'm not sure how to fix.

the background: Gem comes both as a big binary (Gem.pd_linux) and a number of abstractions. everything is installed into /u/l/p/extra/ Gem (to avoid cluttering the global filespace with Gem files); in
order to use the abstractions painlessly (that is: without prefixing them "Gem/"), the /u/l/p/extra/Gem path has to be added somehow to Pd's search paths. (this can be done manually via the -path, or automatically by Gem). so far so good.

the problem: starting Pd with Gem added to the paths, results in a not-so-nice help-browser experience: basically the left column (the one that is crucial for navigating the various directories) is filled
with 224 or so help-patches from Gem, sorted alphabetically (so
directories are lost somewhere between files), and upper-case before lower-case. of course there is also a directory entry for Gem/ in the help- browser, making the information accessible two times (adding more confusion)

given that both GF and Gem are to add their paths automatically on startup, the left column if the help-browser might have >500 help-patches and several dozens of directories.

i don't know exactly where to fix the problem, but a simple solution would be to only allow directories on the left side (and add an
entry for "<searchpaths>" (probably an entry for "all searchpaths" and separate entries for each searchpath), rather than throwing
everything together.

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If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

On Thu, 05 May 2011 10:20 +0200, "IOhannes m zmölnig" zmoelnig@iem.at wrote:

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On 05/05/2011 03:38 AM, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

...

On May 4, 2011, at 5:47 PM, Paul Brossier wrote:

...

On Wed, May 04, 2011 at 12:18:04PM -0400, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

...

Using Pd-extended 0.43.1-20110430 on Mac OS X I don't see this behvaior with Gem or gridflow. The helpbrowser.tcl code is the same between pure-data and pd-extended.

How do you start pd to load Gem?

Removing '-path /usr/lib/pd/extra/Gem', the help browser behaves as expected.

yes, but then Pd doesn't find Gem's abstractions. that's the reason why the "-path" is there in the first place.

...

Check Gem_addownpath() in src/Base/GemSetup.cpp. If Gem's ./configure finds s_stuff.h, it should enable this. This is something like what gridflow does too. Then pd -lib Gem also puts path/to/Gem/abstractions in the path also.

which i have enabled now in my latest push. (and disabled the -path in pd-gem)

i still think that the separating libraries and files in the help-browser is a good idea (just like static and dynamic content are separated, and patches and non-patches are separated)

If this is related to the patch you submitted, as long as its clean, I am fine with including it. But sorting folders before files is not the solution to the problem of pd -lib Gem not loading everything into the global namespace. Luckily there is already Gem_addownpath() because I think that is the way it should be handled.

.hc

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On 2011-05-09 15:48, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

On Tue, 3 May 2011, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

...

given that both GF and Gem are to add their paths automatically on startup, the left column if the help-browser might have >500 help-patches and several dozens of directories.

speaking of which, do you have a solution for the following case ? When people uninstall and reinstall the library with a different path, and then they have to know that they're supposed to remove any path items that have been added automatically, because they do happen to be saved if you edit the paths from the Path dialogue.

run a script that checks the user's .pdsettings for potential older installations of GF and suggest to remove them.

fgamsdr IOhannes

On Mon, 6 Jun 2011, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

On May 10, 2011, at 6:20 AM, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

...

On 2011-05-09 15:48, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

...

On Tue, 3 May 2011, IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:

...

given that both GF and Gem are to add their paths automatically on startup, the left column if the help-browser might have >500 help-patches and several dozens of directories.

speaking of which, do you have a solution for the following case ? When people uninstall and reinstall the library with a different path, and then they have to know that they're supposed to remove any path items that have been added automatically, because they do happen to be saved if you edit the paths from the Path dialogue.

run a script that checks the user's .pdsettings for potential older installations of GF and suggest to remove them.

Another idea is to discourage the use of the preferences for saving paths and startup libraries. Since gridflow configure its self when its loaded, people can use [import gridflow]/[declare -lib gridflow] in the patch.

But there's a difference between discouraging the use and removing the use.

When you do [import gridflow], gridflow will try adding itself to the path. As long as the path gets saved into the settings-file, it may contain gridflow folders for versions of gridflow that are not in use.

I might get gridflow to stop adding things to the path in the future, just to avoid such problems in the future. It's a lot better than having gridflow's startup trying to see whether anything has to be removed from path... and doing it correctly.

| Mathieu Bouchard ---- tél: +1.514.383.3801 ---- Villeray, Montréal, QC