On Sat, 2004-07-17 at 14:13, Thomas Sivertsen wrote:

And on that note, as a beginner to PD, I was wondering whether there is something that will enable me to make cleaner interfaces in PD. I mean, something that hides my patch-cords and objects to reduce visual clutter. And is there something like a layered approach in PD, so that I can put something in front of other objects/cords?

You can use Pd's "Graph On Parent" option to show the GUI elements inside an abstraction inside the object box where you use the abstraction. These can be nested to build up more complex user interface abstractions. Example: http://puredata.info/Members/claudiusmaximus/copyme/gravity/screenshots/grav...

To use graph on parent, you need to right-click in an empty area of an abstraction patch (say, myabs.pd) and select properties, then select the graph on parent option. When you use the abstraction in another patch the [myabs] object box will contain the graphical objects of myabs.pd.

To get it all layed out neatly, what I do is create a canvas in the top left corner of the patch (with a gap above enough for the object box text), and put the graphical objects on top of it, using the send/recieve properties to connect them to the rest of the patch. Then before saving the patch I reduce the size of the window to show only the canvas GUI area. Then sometimes I need to adjust the properties where I used the abstraction, to make the [myabs] object box a couple of pixels larger than the size of the canvas within myabs.pd. Example: http://puredata.info/Members/claudiusmaximus/copyme/gravity/screenshots/grav...

To make complex logic clearer, you can create canvases to mark blocks of logic - because of the way Pd draws things, you have to create the canvases before the objects that are on top of it (or cut-and-paste the objects after creating the canvases). Example: http://puredata.info/Members/claudiusmaximus/copyme/gravity/screenshots/grav...

Source patches for these screenshots are found at: http://puredata.info/Members/claudiusmaximus/copyme/gravity/source/

Claude

http://www.claudiusmaximus.tk

Hallo, Thomas Sivertsen hat gesagt: // Thomas Sivertsen wrote:

And on that note, as a beginner to PD, I was wondering whether there is something that will enable me to make cleaner interfaces in PD. I mean, something that hides my patch-cords and objects to reduce visual clutter. And is there something like a layered approach in PD, so that I can put something in front of other objects/cords?

You mean like this: http://footils.org/images/show.png ? Patch in http://footils.org/pkg/showcase.tgz (require RRADical)

Ciao

Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__

Thomas Sivertsen wrote:

And on that note, as a beginner to PD, I was wondering whether there is something that will enable me to make cleaner interfaces in PD. I mean, something that hides my patch-cords and objects to reduce visual clutter. And is there something like a layered approach in PD, so that I can put something in front of other objects/cords?

Suggestions for an approach to cleaner interfaces in PD are highly welcome!

Hidden patch cords: use [send]/[receive], [send~]/[receive~], [throw~]/[catch~] pairs. Also, exploit the send and receive functions of the GUI objects. This goes against the grain of readablity for some. The "PD programming conventions" doc which got bounced around here a while back [http://www.earcatching.com/pdconv/] suggested that "hiding" connections with send/receive, etc made it more difficult for others to read your patches. This is, of course, partly true. It really depends on layout and how well your comment yor work.

Hidden objects: use subpatches or abstractions to hide the main "guts" of your patch--the stuff that is functional without an interface--out of sight. There is more on this in the html manual and also in the examples which come with PD. Once again, the PD programming doc I mentioned advised using subpatches over abstractions for readabilty. I advise using abstractions over subpatches for *reusability*! Whatever floats your boat...

Layered objects: here is where using canvases and Graph-on-Parent, such as Frank does in the RRADical patches he sent the screenshots of, would really apply. In general, PD shows you the objects in order of creation. So when you drag one GoP or GUI object over another one, you'll see the "youngest" one on top. To change the order, you'll have to cut n' paste the one you want to see first.

d.