'best' technic/practice to make a patch full auto load and start up

bart at max (previously BITter)'s icon

What's your technic/practice to make a patch full auto load and start up (on a Mac)?
Maybe we find mutually a kind of 'best' technic/practice. ;-)

I now some technics/practices but those seems always to complex to get the job done.

Roman Thilenius's icon

in theory:
- have only one runtime on the computer
- put the patch in the autoload folder

in practice i dont do it, i only trust manual lanches using desktop remote/VNC or similar.

ben sonic's icon

On installations I use apples Automator to delay the startup of max in time, to ensure the computer isn’t stressed. It might be superstitious, but never had any problems so far. 

bart at max (previously BITter)'s icon

@roman: your 'in theory' is how i also am doing it, your 'practice' is practical when there is a problem.
@ben: nice to use Automator, but i want it direct as possible
This all is on system level, how on patch level?
Which objects (loadbang, ...), connections and settings?


I use mostly something like this:
[loadbang] —[send ...]
—[delay 2000]—[send ...]
—[delay 4000]—[send ...]

Roman Thilenius's icon

loadbang delay is generally a bad idea, it can lead to unpredictable results.

on max layer it should not make a difference if the main patcher is launched as startuopo object or somewhen later, but on OS level it might make a difference.

ben´s idea of using applescript to delay the startup items sounds sexy.

it could be very useful in situations where a firewire or thunderbolt device, or a PCI card has to be initialised, or the monitor(s) resolution has to be forced to a certain setting, prior to opening max.

bart at max (previously BITter)'s icon

@roman: If the loadbang delay is well controlled it works without problems. Why i use it, is because it was needed to get some of my setups running properly.
@ben: Yes Applescript or Automator does of coarse do the trick to delay a patch in general.
Then i do other delay's in the patch to set that up proper.

Peter Ostry's icon

I use loadbang delay also, because I need it. First come none-critical tasks like filling colls etc. and they can take as long as they want. Next comes creating/deleting MIDI ports, then setting in/out MIDI ports, then reading files, setting some stuff and finally loading a standard preset from pattrstorage.

Michel's icon

I use qlist, like this

Max Patch
Copy patch and select New From Clipboard in Max.