Screen shot, information and download at:

http://www.loadbang.net/space/Software/Nixies

The demo patcher includes your very own Nixie tube clock, yours to
keep, absolutely free.

nick rothwell — composition, systems, performance — http://
http://www.cassiel.com

thats hot! – nice!

v a d e //

http://www.vade.info
abstrakt.vade.info

> mmmm yeah i’m bathing in nixie tubes as we speak ;)

Careful – don’t electrocute yourself.

You’ll notice that there’s no user interaction with the Nixie
displays. This is partly because JSUI doesn’t take keyboard input,
but there’s no reason why I couldn’t implement some kind of click-and-
drag for digits, if there’s a usable scheme which makes sense.

Oh, I’ve also figured out how to render the Nixies in different
colours…

– N.

nick rothwell — composition, systems, performance — http://
http://www.cassiel.com

beside the “nice” effect it could be useful to see instantly the
state of certain actions : i frequently use numboxes which go from
blue->white as i narrow the Q of a filter or white->red as i increase
the output volume (and one which goes from blue->white->red->black
when using the litter variable colour noise generator)

best

kasper
–
Kasper T. Toeplitz
noise, composition, bass, computer

http://www.sleazeArt.com

Second,

> You’ll notice that there’s no user interaction with the Nixie
> displays. This is partly because JSUI doesn’t take keyboard input,
> but there’s no reason why I couldn’t implement some kind of click-and-
> drag for digits, if there’s a usable scheme which makes sense.

Aye, this is a problem. While I’ve implemented work-arounds with the key object and the hi object, this might be a rare instance where I would endorse a feature request. I can see how a js class that polls the keyboard might be a really usefull addition to the jsui world.

In them mean time, it could work well like the number box.

mz

-110 (maker of the roxies collection)

> I can see how a js class that polls the keyboard might be a really
> usefull addition to the jsui world.

In general, I find keyboard input in Max to be problematic (as a
user, rather than as a programmer). It’s OK to have “select-to-input”
like number boxes, since these highlight to indicate that they are
receiving input, but allowing random objects to get key events sounds
like a recipe for disaster. (Case in point: a programmer I worked
with used the keyboard capture object (which I refuse to use, so I
don’t even remember its name), with a result that we could never save
patcher files with names containing the letter L.)

Anyway, it could be hacked by routing keyboard events to a jsui…
except that jsui doesn’t have a no-longer-focussed event.

– N.

nick rothwell — composition, systems, performance — http://
http://www.cassiel.com

> if “Nixies” would be a german word (instead of beeing
> releated to “Nick”)

I don’t think there is any such relation: if one believes the
Wikipedia, “Nixie” comes from “NIX I”, an abbreviation of “Numeric
Indicator eXperimental No. 1″.

– N.

nick rothwell — composition, systems, performance — http://
http://www.cassiel.com

You mean tv? It’s Boron-only anyway. The object you don’t want to use
nowadays is ice.key .-

But: use active or something to gate when you’re not the frontmost
window. If that’s the UI you want, you have to program for it. Like
everything else in Max. But you knew that anyway;-

– P

————– http://www.bek.no/~pcastine/Litter/ ————-
Peter Castine +—> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter
Heavy-Duty Mathematics for Everyday Use
iCE: Sequencing, Recording &
Interface Building for |home | chez nous|
Max/MSP Extremely cool |bei uns | i nostri|
http://www.dspaudio.com/ http://www.castine.de

> But: use active or something to gate when you’re not the frontmost
> window. If that’s the UI you want, you have to program for it. Like
> everything else in Max. But you knew that anyway;-

In a single patcher window I might have several GUI components (be
they Nixie arrays or whatever). The behaviour I’d want is to click
one (and see it highlight), type at it, type RETURN or ENTER to
register the value (which would also need some kind of visual
confirmation(*)) and then click elsewhere to de-focus. JSUI doesn’t
have keyboard input, and doesn’t have an event for de-focus.

– N.

(*) tricky unless someone can get me a photograph of a “…” Nixie.

nick rothwell — composition, systems, performance — http://
http://www.cassiel.com

I can’t help with the pictures of naiads, but I guess I’m going to
plug iCE, which is what we use for this sort of thing over at DSPAudio.

ice.key gives you more flexibility in getting key ups/downs/autokeys
than the standard Max objects. It will even give you command-keys if
you want. ice.pump is the object that handles focus; left to its own
devices it listens to cursor left/right to switch focus, but you can
patch other conventions, such as return/enter, around it. I would
like to make it so that you could configure pump to listen to tab/
return/whatever instead, maybe with an attribute. But no promises or
dates.

Hope this is of interest.
Best, Peter

————– http://www.bek.no/~pcastine/Litter/ ————-
Peter Castine +—> Litter Power & Litter Bundle for Jitter
Heavy-Duty Mathematics for Everyday Use
iCE: Sequencing, Recording &
Interface Building for |home | chez nous|
Max/MSP Extremely cool |bei uns | i nostri|
http://www.dspaudio.com/ http://www.castine.de