bPatcher confusion
Hello,
It´s really kind of embarrassing to send this post but I am clueless. I have been working with Max for so many years but never used bPatchers for one reason or another. Now that I feel the need to use them I just can't get it to work. It´s easy enough to assign a patcher to be contained in a bpatcher but there ends the fun. I want my bpatchers to work like they do in BEAP or VIZZIE, like just dragging them into an open patcher and BOOM there they are. However after I save a bpatcher and drag it back to an open patcher it behaves like an ordinary patch i.e. as an ordinary patcher box. I then have to open the patcher to see the bpatcher but at that point it has no inputs or outputs. Tried to read the tutorial and docs but that didn't put me anywhere closer to understanding what I am doing wrong... help anyone?!
+ what I am working on could maybe be of interest for the community....it´s pretty cool
Create a new [bpatcher], you get an empty square.
Drag & drop the patch you want to use inside this bpatcher on the empty square: boom, your bpatcher is in there. Is it what you're looking for?
BEAP & VIZZIE create embedded bpatchers. I'm not sure we can do this automatically.
No that is not what I want, It still only creates a "normal" patcher block with no ins/outs. Are the BEAP/VIZZIE a C74 secret? I find that hard to believe....
they kind of are, actually. At least the button in the sidebar showing all modules from which you can paste is not something C74 tells users how to do, but imagin how cluttered the interface could get if they did...
But there are 3 options for you :
*saving as a snippet. They have the extension .maxsnip, i think ; i *think* you can change a patcher from .maxpat to .maxsnip and place it in the Documents/Max 7/Snippets folder (or a Snippet folder inside a package distribution) and you then are able to drag and drop from the sidebar, from the "snippets" menu (clicking on the snippets icon). You'll be able to drag and drop from your generic explorer. So it's actually quite ok ! just need to save as .maxsnip. From a patcher, select anything you want and right clic-> "Save Snippet" will save the selected elements as a snippet.
*save as clippings. Clippings are just .maxpat ; but they are inside a clippings folder in a package. When you right clic in a patcher, you can "paste from..." and the list of all your clippings available. No drag and drop there however i think.
*Last option is the most "reinventing the wheel"-like : creating a max for live device. Probably limiting in a lot of situations, but you can drag and drop any m4l device and see it in your patch.
if you save a "bpatcher" you save a regular patcher and nothing more.
the "bpatcher" you are looking for is a bpatcher object with the name of a patcher as argument.
you can do that by creating "prototypes" for the bpatcher object, for example.
my favorite way of creating bpatchers is copy and paste - or script-creation. aq third option is to create a an emtpy bpatcher obejct and send a message to it.
>>but imagin how cluttered the interface
the max 7 interface is already as cluttered as an interface could be.
hiding some of the best options in the interface from users is nothing but bad policy.
the majority of users will never use vizzie and that is always there and cannot be deleted - while the same option is not available for custom content?
I agree with the idea of hiding options from the users being a very poor idea as such. Being able to, and guided in a decent way of how to make drag able bpatchers (or the like) should be open and clearly explained to anyone who wants to use it no matter the potential clutter. My wish is simply to be able to create open source content that could potentially be useful for som Max users (there are a lot of them not so deep into Max programming) apart from using it myself in a streamlined and powerful way. The drag and drop fashion is after all very easy and practical and allows you to develop more modular apps instead of closed standalone solutions. Thank you all for helping me on the way. I will try to explore things guided by your tips. I thought it would be easier than it seems but at least you opened a gate for me...thanks!
Aaaah, saving as snippet made it happen! Since I am not particularly interested in putting stuff in the sidebar (oh yes it would eventually be cluttered) I am totally happy with the snippet solution. This way anyone can use the stuff as drag and drop easy as Santa goes distributing Xmas gifts :) Thanks a lot again guys. You made my day...
@Roman : you say the interface is cluttered as is, yet you recognize these options as some of the "best options" of the user interface ? ;)
i agree with you there to some extent - i'd like to be able to hide those b and v buttons sometimes ; plus i think it would be nice to have customized sidebar - but if external packages could change it from outside they would add too much too fast. It's already sometimes the case that shortcuts overlap each other from third parties packages (though there are sometimes very cool like Nathanael's Toolbox), and it's difficult to customize (you have to change shortcuts in a file in each package and your change will be overwritten by an upgrade).
The snippet menu is cool :) maybe beeing able to classify snippets by packages would be cool.
well "best" of the existing options is always relative and it is not identical with "best possible".
>> but if external packages could change it from outside they would add too much too fast.
not at all. it could be a menu with submenus. actually i dont even see the need to have a little button for it, the whole filebrowser for pictures, movies, audio files, abstractions, externals, snippets and prototypes could all be in one contextmenu.
currently there are 20 buttons AND keycommands AND autocorretion AND contextmenus AND a master menu with an extras menu AND an object list and the prica for this is sidebars on all 4 sides of your window - and yet it is still not so easy to give yourself access to your OWN libraries.
apropos contextmenu. i am already getting mad with max6 and max7 when "open original" is hidden in a submenu. this is my MOST used item in the contextmenu and it is put ALONE into a submenu for obviously no reason.
i need this every 30 seconds - and it is harder to find than the vizzie bs.
sorry for the rant, i know i am out of the game, i have left the discourse about the design discussion long ago - it is hopeless anway. max 8 will only start when you have a facebook account and i couldnt care less.