...

Then we would have to think about the underlying storage format.

i agree. i'm sick of library-specific hacks on cramming what they need to store in the .pd format. or user-level hacks using symbol manipulation objects. it's time for a format that can be at least say, 80% useful and flexible and diffable moving forward. RDF anyone?

RDF seems like overkill here. Simple xml with a start tag and end tag for each item, one item per line, should work fine everywhere. As an example in my registry I have under My Computer->HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->SOFTWARE->Pd: audioapi 3 audiobuf 70 audioindev1 0 2 audiooutdev1 0 2 defeatrt 0 flags loadlib1 Gem nloadlib 1 noaudioon False noaoudioout False nomidiin True nomidiout True npath 0 rate 44100 standardpath 1 verbose 0

...which could be xmled as:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone='yes'?>

<!-- comments about Pd configuration -->

<audioapi> 3 </audioapi> <audiobuf> 70 </audiobuf> <audioindev1> 0 2 </audioindev1> <audiooutdev1> 0 2 </audiooutdev1> <defeatrt> 0 </defeatrt> <flags></flags> <loadlib1> Gem </loadlib1> <nloadlib> 1 </nloadlib> <noaudioon> False </noaudioon> <noaoudioout> False </noaoudioout> <nomidiin> True </nomidiin> <nomidiout> True </nomidiout> <npath> 0 </npath> <rate> 44100 </rate> <standardpath> 1 </standardpath> <verbose> 0 </verbose>

...although I would change <loadlib1> to just <loadlib> and allow as many of them as you like instead of ten.

Martin