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get varname from DeviceParameter


wellis

wellis
Dec 5, 2013 at 7:51am

get varname from DeviceParameter

I think I know what answer I’m going to get, but thought I’d better ask just in case. Is there any way to ask live.object for the varname of a DeviceParameter?

#274835

wellis

wellis
Feb 24, 2014 at 8:27am

Given no response to this, I think I know that the answer is no ;)

However (asking anyone from cycling74), is this on a roadmap at all? It seems to me that this is a bit of a gap in the toolset, as I have no way of resolving situations where controls have the same short name.

N.B. This is quite a common occurrence if you are implementing for Ableton Push and only have 8 characters. Example would be FineTune for each of two oscillators on a synth, which are displayed on two different banks of the Push, whereby the duplication is not an issue.

#281947

Lee

Lee
Feb 24, 2014 at 8:35am

Not quite sure what you’re asking here… you want the name of a device parameter?

#281950

wellis

wellis
Feb 24, 2014 at 8:40am

In the list of attributes of a Device Parameter in the LOM, the only available names are name and original name (both of which relate to Short Name)… http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/refpages/m4l-ref/m4l_live_object_model.html#DeviceParameter

It would be really useful if the LOM exposed Scripting and Long Names too ( http://cycling74.com/docs/max5/refpages/m4l-ref/parameters.html ), especially Scripting name, as that is unique. That would allow you to find a specific control that you want to set the value of, or otherwise query.

#281952

Lee

Lee
Feb 24, 2014 at 8:52am

ok, I see. Remember when you use the LOM, you are talking to Live, not to MAX and so not all of these concepts exist. For example, these is no scripting name for a parameter as that is a Max concept…

These is however the Live path for a device parameter which will be unique within the current set (tho subject to change if moving stuff around)

#281954

wellis

wellis
Feb 24, 2014 at 9:06am

Oh, of course, understood, but I am talking about asking the question via Live-specific objects.

My specific use-case is maybe slightly unusual, in that I’m trying to write something that is easy for other end-users to customise, with changes to parameter naming and layout, but retains a fixed mapping to an external parameter set.

#281955

Lee

Lee
Feb 24, 2014 at 9:34am

Hmmm.. still confused by “It would be really useful if the LOM exposed Scripting and Long Names too” then – the LOM is just a m4l wrapper around the pyhton API into Live.. So when you say scripting and long names too, are you saying that you wish Live exposed scripting and long names too??? (or have I just lost the plot)

maybe a small real-world example might help? or someone else may understand better than me :)

#281960

wellis

wellis
Feb 24, 2014 at 9:57am

Sorry, I know I’m probably not making a lot of sense, as I’m not very experienced with the LOM!

If you imagine that I have a set of live.* objects (e.g. live.dial) which have a relationship with a parameter in another program that I am controlling. I want to be able to set up bidirectional communication across this link.

At the moment, I just use a simple message system “paramname rawvalue” coming out of the Max For Live object’s raw value, e.g. “A1 0.003″ means set my A1 parameter to 0.003. This then gets forwarded on to my external program.

Now the problem comes when I want to tell the Max For Live object that someone changed the parameter in the external program. I want to be able to navigate the LOM to find the Device Parameter that has a specific name (in this example A1) and then set its value.

Because the protocol I’m creating means there is a fixed set of possible parameters (128 parameters in groups of 8 from A1 to P8), I want to be able to use an identifier that isn’t then displayed in the Live GUI or on the Push, hence Scripting Name, ideally.

In case it helps, this is an example of how a set of 8 live.dials is patched at the moment (the send goes off to my mxj~ code):

<code>

– Pasted Max Patch, click to expand. –

</code>

#281970

Lee

Lee
Feb 24, 2014 at 10:30am

so it looks as though you’re not actually interacting with Ableton?

even though you are using live.* objects, if you’re not actually using the LOM unless you are talking to Live… is this the case?

#281973

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