Seems there's a lot of activity around docs and tutorials in this community at the moment. It's great for someone like me, giving Pd another try after a couple of years of using Max/MSP. Since I last looked at it, things are much improved. Pd-extended is great; all the libraries I'll probably/maybe need are packaged away in a .app where I can just forget about them. This is market leading as far as I'm concerned; much better than Max/MSP (or heaven forbid, SuperCollider!) - for me as a musician/geek (but not a programmer) the whole business of trying to figure out which stupid folder some bunch of stupid files has to be dropped into just - gets - really - boring.
On the docs and tutorials front, again I'm finding a lot of great stuff. However... just at the moment I'm trying to port one of my favourite max patches to Pd and finding it unexpectedly difficult to find the information I need. I find I'm missing three really useful things in Max/MSP; in order of importance, probably, consistent 'related object' buttons in the help patches, the Object Thesaurus, and a complete reference manual.
Ok, there are 'related object' buttons in many help files, but for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I frequently find myself dead-ended in Pd, and not sure where to look for an object which might just do what I want.
This is where an Object Thesaurus would be really great, being able to look up objects (including those from extended libraries) by what-they-do category. For instance, the other day I was looking to see if there was something like the Max/MSP matrix~ and matrixctrl for audio routing. I couldn't really see where to start, other than trawling randomly through help files and tutorials in the hope of spotting something relevant. http://en.flossmanuals.net/PureData/ListofObjects is a good start in this direction (although that page is formatting oddly for me at the moment?)
Finally, of course, a complete reference page on every object...
nb 1 - of course, for matrix~ I ended up using, er, matrix~ from the cyclone library. Still wondering if there is another way, rather than just falling back on Max/MSP solutions...
nb 2 - hope this post comes across as useful feedback from a newish user, not carping...
Hi,
the list of objects in the FLOSS Manual is kind of a place-holder right now. It needs some help, maybe someone at the upcoming book sprint would like to take some charge over the situation ;-)
The Object Thesaurus function you are describing is supposed to be handled by the Pdpedia page, however it is a bit "orphaned" right now, and tends to collect a lot of spam because of insufficient protections. There has been a lot of discussion about what to do with it, and hopefully some of that discussion will get realized into action!
best, Derek
J. Simon van der Walt wrote:
Seems there's a lot of activity around docs and tutorials in this community at the moment. It's great for someone like me, giving Pd another try after a couple of years of using Max/MSP. Since I last looked at it, things are much improved. Pd-extended is great; all the libraries I'll probably/maybe need are packaged away in a .app where I can just forget about them. This is market leading as far as I'm concerned; much better than Max/MSP (or heaven forbid, SuperCollider!) - for me as a musician/geek (but not a programmer) the whole business of trying to figure out which stupid folder some bunch of stupid files has to be dropped into just - gets - really - boring.
On the docs and tutorials front, again I'm finding a lot of great stuff. However... just at the moment I'm trying to port one of my favourite max patches to Pd and finding it unexpectedly difficult to find the information I need. I find I'm missing three really useful things in Max/MSP; in order of importance, probably, consistent 'related object' buttons in the help patches, the Object Thesaurus, and a complete reference manual.
Ok, there are 'related object' buttons in many help files, but for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I frequently find myself dead-ended in Pd, and not sure where to look for an object which might just do what I want.
This is where an Object Thesaurus would be really great, being able to look up objects (including those from extended libraries) by what-they-do category. For instance, the other day I was looking to see if there was something like the Max/MSP matrix~ and matrixctrl for audio routing. I couldn't really see where to start, other than trawling randomly through help files and tutorials in the hope of spotting something relevant. http://en.flossmanuals.net/PureData/ListofObjects is a good start in this direction (although that page is formatting oddly for me at the moment?)
Finally, of course, a complete reference page on every object...
nb 1 - of course, for matrix~ I ended up using, er, matrix~ from the cyclone library. Still wondering if there is another way, rather than just falling back on Max/MSP solutions...
nb 2 - hope this post comes across as useful feedback from a newish user, not carping...
Welcome (back) to Pd! :-) I have two quick responses:
pdpedia is useful for searching for objects based on keywords: http://wiki.puredata.info/en/
as for the help patches that are lacking, feel free to fix them up
and submit them to the patch tracker, then we can add them. There are
2000+ objects included in Pd-extended, so there is a lot of work to
document them all.
http://puredata.info/dev/patchtracker
.hc
On Apr 3, 2009, at 4:13 AM, J. Simon van der Walt wrote:
Seems there's a lot of activity around docs and tutorials in this
community at the moment. It's great for someone like me, giving Pd another try
after a couple of years of using Max/MSP. Since I last looked at it, things
are much improved. Pd-extended is great; all the libraries I'll probably/ maybe need are packaged away in a .app where I can just forget about them. This
is market leading as far as I'm concerned; much better than Max/MSP (or
heaven forbid, SuperCollider!) - for me as a musician/geek (but not a
programmer) the whole business of trying to figure out which stupid folder some
bunch of stupid files has to be dropped into just - gets - really - boring.On the docs and tutorials front, again I'm finding a lot of great
stuff. However... just at the moment I'm trying to port one of my favourite
max patches to Pd and finding it unexpectedly difficult to find the
information I need. I find I'm missing three really useful things in Max/MSP; in
order of importance, probably, consistent 'related object' buttons in the
help patches, the Object Thesaurus, and a complete reference manual.Ok, there are 'related object' buttons in many help files, but for
some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I frequently find myself dead- ended in Pd, and not sure where to look for an object which might just do
what I want.This is where an Object Thesaurus would be really great, being able
to look up objects (including those from extended libraries) by what-they-do category. For instance, the other day I was looking to see if there
was something like the Max/MSP matrix~ and matrixctrl for audio routing. I couldn't really see where to start, other than trawling randomly
through help files and tutorials in the hope of spotting something relevant. http://en.flossmanuals.net/PureData/ListofObjects is a good start in
this direction (although that page is formatting oddly for me at the
moment?)Finally, of course, a complete reference page on every object...
nb 1 - of course, for matrix~ I ended up using, er, matrix~ from the
cyclone library. Still wondering if there is another way, rather than just
falling back on Max/MSP solutions...nb 2 - hope this post comes across as useful feedback from a newish
user, not carping...-- J. Simon van der Walt ----- Composer http://www.jsimonvanderwalt.com
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Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic.
It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and
expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on
terrorism. - retired U.S. Army general, William Odom
-
Derek Holzer -
Hans-Christoph Steiner -
J. Simon van der Walt