Cycling 74 » Topic: Conditional displays?

Conditional displays?

Peter Ostry — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:11:42 +0000

Can I show and hide Max objects based on certain conditions? Not in a window but right in a GUI.

I have an oscillator for several test tones but don’t have much space to waste. I want “Noise” and “Sinus” buttons which load the appropriate interfaces with different parameters.

I believe Max can do it. Max can do everything ;-)

Re: Conditional displays?

Ben Bracken — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:12:50 +0000

you can show and hide any named object with the messages ‘script show/hide objectname’. To name an object, select it and choose ‘name’ from the Object menu.

If you have a bunch of different interfaces, you might want to use a bpatcher and dynamically replace it. Check out Max Tutorial 47 for ways to do this.

-b

Re: Conditional displays?

seejayjames — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:56:20 +0000

yes, definitely check out the help files on thispatcher for scripting possibilities. Lots of things you can do. Also the bpatcher comment is right on, it’s a really powerful feature that lets you use other patches as interface objects themselves, inline in the patch (as opposed to windows).

If you want pop-up windows for the Noise and Sinus, or whatever else (appearance / color panels are good for this), use subpatches with a pcontrol attached to open them. (Key strokes could also open them easily, look at “key” help file and attach bang to the “open” command for pcontrol.)

Then, in a thispatcher in *those* patches, you can make the windows behave however you want — size, floating or not, resizable or not, etc. Max’s control over multiple windows, and the ease which you can make them, is pretty much unmatched IMO …

–CJ

Re: Conditional displays?

Peter Ostry — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:18:13 +0000

Oh, a new door opens again.
Thispatcher, that patcher, b or not to bpatcher. Great stuff, I will need a while to get into that but it is exactly what I am looking for. Thank you very much!

Re: Conditional displays?

Adam Murray — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:50:38 +0000

Heads up: you may have some issues scripting show/hide of objects, especially inside a bpatcher. A lot of times the screen does not redraw correctly. You can bang a “; max refresh” in a message box to fix it, but it’ll make your screen flicker every time you show or hide something.

I’ve had more luck moving things offscreen or changing the bpatcher offset. Sometimes I move a white, borderless panel overtop of stuff instead of hiding it. Lots of options for this sort of thing.

I’ve heard these redrawing issues are fixed in Max 5.