On Jun 12, 2009, at 9:25 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
--- On Fri, 6/12/09, Hans-Christoph Steiner <h...@at.or.at> wrote:
From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <h...@at.or.at>
Subject: Re: Revising Help Files
To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancs...@yahoo.com>
Cc: pd-list@iem.at
Date: Friday, June 12, 2009, 7:45 PM
On Jun 12, 2009, at 4:50 AM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
Ok, a couple things:
1. pddplink gives a big error when loading your
template:
wrong # args: should be "::pddp::srvUse ?root?
?port?"
wrong # args: should be "::pddp::srvUse ?root?
?port?"
while executing
"::pddp::srvUse D:/Documents and
Settings/dude/Desktop"
("after" script)
It still shows up in the patch (and seems to
work). I'm on
windows xp.
bugs bugs bugs... keep on coming up... yeah, that should be
fixed... I
think its only on Windows.
I propose getting rid of it in the template. Even when it works,
it points to pages that just duplicate the info from the help-
patch the user would already be looking at, but without the
benefit of example patches, context, or intelligibility. Unless
it's pointing to old pages or something, but I googled pdpedia,
looked up "float", and it's the same page.
The idea for the pdpedia links is a place to easily gather info about
that object. So far there aren't a lot of contributions. But I think
that having pdpedia links on all of the help patches would help
generate more contributions, IMHO. The pdpedia pages are definitely
not a replacement for the help patch, I think of it as something more
like a place to have an open conversation about that object.
2. Is there an object that outputs the methods
of objects? It would be nice to automatically
generate info for
inlets/outlets/arguments rather than type it in by
hand.
This is the kind of stuff that IOhannes is working on in
the iemguts
lib, check that to see if it is possible.
3. Is absattr a normal part of pd-ext? I seem to
remember using it
previously for something, but it's not in the most
current release.
In any case, I went ahead and tried to make my keys
and values
compatible with absattr.
No, its part of Thomas Grill's flext externals, which are
maintained
in a separate SVN and he releases his own binaries.
I think that absattr is not a Pd-ish way of working, Pd has
no
'attributes' like Max/MSP. I think the documentation
should be as Pd-
ish as possible.
4. Is there a place somewhere on puredata.info where
there's
a discussion I can read about why each
inlet/outlet/argument needs
a description?
Hmm, definitely somewhere, donno exactly where. I
remember it seeming
obvious, plus we were following the precedent of the Gem
docs.
Hm, I have another view, but I'm running into a wall with my
current attempts at a solution, so I'll just barrel through using
the pddp template and see how far I get.
Cool, we did spend a good amount of time working on that template, but
that doesn't mean its cast in stone. It has good things but can
definitely be improved. Ultimately, I think if you are willing to do
a lot of work making help patches, then you should have liberty to
shape the template.
5. Is there a limit to the number of arguments an
abstraction may
have?
Hmm, I think 10 but I could be wrong.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's more than that. I'm using about up to
30 in pd-ext without any noticeable side effects.
What is pd guts for in the template?
[pd guts] is a place for someone to implement stuff that is separate
from the examples, l think originally, the idea was to have some kind
of page turning logic there. Its fully optional.
.hc
-Jonathan
.hc
Thanks,
Jonathan
On Wed, 6/10/09, Hans-Christoph Steiner <h...@at.or.at>
wrote:
From: Hans-Christoph Steiner <h...@at.or.at>
Subject: Re: Revising Help Files
To: "Jonathan Wilkes" <jancs...@yahoo.com>
Cc: "a. tonal" <ladat...@hotmail.de>,
pd-list@iem.at
Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 9:03 PM
Hey,
Your patches look quite nice. I'm glad you
are taking
this stuff on, Pd will definitely benefit from
more work on
the documentation.
There was quite a bit of discussion on this topic
a few
years back as part of the PDDP project. All
of the
discussion is archived on http://puredata.info/dev/pddp We did
come up with
a template, you can download it from the
SVN. It is a
bit heavier that your design:
http://pure-data.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/pure-data/trunk/doc/pddp/templates/template-help.pd
About htab's dependency on pddp/dsp, it would be
possible
to make pddp/dsp a subpatch. But then again,
I think
that Pd-extended is the only distro to include the
PDDP help
patches, so it makes sense to use the pddp/dsp
object.
.hc
On Jun 10, 2009, at 12:09 AM, Jonathan Wilkes
wrote:
Hi List,
I'm interested in revising the help files for
the
basic objects in
pd-ext. Basically having a standard
table so
that one can find
quickly find basic info on an object.
I made an abstraction called htab that
automatically
formats this
information in a gop abstraction.
Currently I'm
entering the info
as arguments to htab, which works quite well
when
using
ctrl-t.
However, there are currently lots of different
help
patch formats in
the reference folder for the common pd
objects.
I'd like to have
one standard format to make it quicker and
easier to
get help.
Attached are examples of what I'd like to
implement. Aside from
the pddp/dsp abstraction, it has the benefit
of being
vanilla-
compatible and fitting on an 800x600 screen
(at least
on windows).
Please have a look at the attached and let me
know if
this seems
like a good format or not. The patches
should
work with the
current pd-x.
Thanks,
Jonathan
<reference-6-8-09.zip>
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