dnk777

I am learning about preset management objects in MAX and I am maybe missing something, but are the wires going from [pattr] object really bidirectional?

I thought that we have data flowing from outlets to inlets and I find the way the [pattr] object works really confusing + it also makes it quite useless in some cases. For example, when building some GUI my own way (not using the basic GUI objects, but LCD object + some logic around it, it's sometimes a different place (inlet) where I want to recall value and different place (outlet) from where i want the values to be stored.

Seems to me, that having [pattr-in ] and [pattr-out ] objects separately would be much more reasonable. More useful + it would be much more intuitive to have data flow only from outlets into inlets. I can see, that replacing the [pattr] object would not be possible at this point, but maybe just adding a separate objects for storing and recalling would still make sense?

I am learning about preset management objects in MAX and I am maybe missing something, but are the wires going from [pattr] object really bidirectional?
I thought that we have data flowing from outlets to inlets and I find the way the [pattr] object works really confusing + it also makes it quite useless in some cases. For example, when building some GUI my own way (not using the basic GUI objects, but LCD object + some logic around it, it's sometimes a different place (inlet) where I want to recall value and different place (outlet) from where i want the values to be stored.

few-thoughts-about-the-clumsy-pattr-object

For clarity (pattr object as an alias) you may use the @bindto attribute instead of wire connection.

You can also use pattr's inlet and first outlet to set and get the value.

But beware of feedback loops, because pattr will immediately output the value it receives.

You can also use pattr's inlet and first outlet to set and get the value.
But beware of feedback loops, because pattr will immediately output the value it receives.


I would use bindto or better yet, use [autopattr] if you only need to store it in the GUI object. Then you can simply set by scripting name from [pattrforward].

Interestingly, [pattr] has a check against stack overflow, which was interesting to learn:

few thoughts about the clumsy pattr object