smaria

how might I use the object mousestate in order to have a panel or dial change colors as my mouse moves along the patcher while in presentation mode? I am trying to create a digital cypress of sorts, I would love any help, tips, or suggestions on this project.

digital cyrpex.maxpat

how might I use the object mousestate in order to have a panel or dial change colors as my mouse moves along the patcher while in presentati

question-from-newbie-mousestate

Hi, here's a simpler example with panel only, plus a little extra on how to mouse-scroll a locked-patcher's background color as well:

(also, if you want to share patchers in a more compressed/easy format like the above, make sure you're in patching mode(to ensure all involved objects will be selected), then choose 'Select All' from the 'Edit' menu(or use the associated keyboard-shortcut as is standard for your operating system), then from that same 'Edit' menu, choose "Copy Compressed"... this copies the patch in a compressed format like above to your computer's clipboard allowing you to then simply paste right into forum posts here)

i did my best to explain everything in comments within the patch, but feel free to ask if anything's unclear, i (or someone else if i'm away) can help further from there(lock the patcher first, then double-click on the 'loadbang' object to initialize, the patch will then work to demonstrate the color changes, you can click into presentation mode too)

i noticed you asked about how to do this while in presentation mode, and you probably already know this, but since none of the objects in your patch were in presentation mode, just to make sure you're aware:

to put an object in presentation mode, select the object, then open its inspector(from the 'View' menu you can choose(or learn its keyboard-shortcut) from there: "Inspector Window"... this is also the 'i' icon in the right-hand toolbar of the general max patcher interface), and within the Inspector window for that object, tick the box to select "Include In Presentation".

the Inspector window can give you attribute names(as long as the "@" symbol, on the bottom toolbar of the inspector window, is clicked-on/highlighted-yellow) which can be used as messages sent directly to objects.

another small thing to note: the panel in your patch has a border size set to 64, which effectively turns the border so large it obscures any background, in which case, you could've also set the border size to 0(no border), and simply use the 'bgfillcolor' attribute, message-style(like i do in my example above).

Hope it helps! (apologies in advance for my wordiness 😅) 🍻

i noticed you asked about how to do this while in presentation mode, and you probably already know this, but since none of the objects in your patch were in presentation mode, just to make sure you're aware:
to put an object in presentation mode, select the object, then open its inspector(from the 'View' menu you can choose(or learn its keyboard-shortcut) from there: "Inspector Window"... this is also the 'i' icon in the right-hand toolbar of the general max patcher interface), and within the Inspector window for that object, tick the box to select "Include In Presentation".

another small thing to note: the panel in your patch has a border size set to 64, which effectively turns the border so large it obscures any background, in which case, you could've also set the border size to 0(no border), and simply use the 'bgfillcolor' attribute, message-style(like i do in my example above).

Hope it helps! (apologies in advance for my wordiness 😅) 🍻


Wow! I need to extend a HUGE thank you to you for all of your help. I appreciate this so much. The comments really helped me understand max so much more. Seeing it done the way you did it, makes a ton of sense to me and it really simplified the parts of the program I thought were difficult to understand. I may have further questions in the future so If I do I will be sure to ask once again. I didn't even know how to put things in presentation mode either- so your explanation on that goes a really long way. Like I said I am new to all of this max and programming (in general) thing.

For real I cannot thank you enough. Thank you thank you thank you.

Wow! I need to extend a HUGE thank you to you for all of your help. I appreciate this so much. The comments really helped me understand max so much more. Seeing it done the way you did it, makes a ton of sense to me and it really simplified the parts of the program I thought were difficult to understand. I may have further questions in the future so If I do I will be sure to ask once again.  I didn't even know how to put things in presentation mode either- so your explanation on that goes a really long way. Like I said I am new to all of this max and programming (in general) thing. 

question from newbie (mousestate)