Building apps and pattrstorage

    leighhunt
    Feb 03 2006 | 1:16 pm
    Hi there from a newbie in this forum... ..and a relatively new user of Max/MSP....(4 months).... so, excuses for missing obvious things!!
    I have a little problem when trying to build a standalone application from a Max patcher I have made. For a quick view of the patcher - a screenshot is on this webpage; http://homepage.mac.com/leighhunt/news.html.
    In this patcher i use pattrstorage to save presets of; 1 - All named objects in the patcher (there is an autopattr in the patcher too).
    2 - Sections of the patcher, using the same pattrstorage object with object specifiic messages and sotre location offsets).
    My problem arose when I found out that the 'umenu' onject, which I use for naming of presets doesn't pass menu names to pattrstorage.... I have negated this problem on my own machine by implementing a load/store sequence, writing to and reading from text tables. What I can NOT work out how to do , is; How to set the file path in a write/read message to a text object so that it will be correct when the patcher is built into an application - I particularly want to avoid the necessity of another user having to load each menu list with a file dialgoue.
    If anyone can shed light on this I would be so grateful. I truly have scoured the reference manual and tutorials without success. regards leigh
    • Peter Nyboer
      Feb 03 2006 | 2:55 pm
      in general, anything you can't store in pattrstorage, you'll have to store in a coll or text file - i'd recommend coll becuase it's easily indexed and easily referred to in multiple places in your patch. You'll have 2 files per project - however, you could treat the stuff in a text file as "prefs" that load on each use of the app - i don't know if that is good for you or not. you'll probably want to know the path to the app, too. There's some hints on dealing with that in Mac at http://www.yowstar.com/share/pathstuff.zip On XP it's more straightforward.
    • leighhunt
      Feb 03 2006 | 4:55 pm
      wow - thanks for the quick reply pnyboer. i'm looking through pathstuff right now.
      I had been saving 3 menus as separate text files, so I guess first it would be best to form these into 1 text file, as eventually the finished app will have 9 user named umenus. What might you think?
      I think on my part I need to read up a little more on building apps, this is all quite new to me.. for example, I have no idea how to ceate an application that 'installs' on a machine, which I guess you need to be able to do to place folders/text files within the user/library/preferences folder.
      On a more generic note, I have to say, coming from a live sound engineer/Logic Pro Hobbyist with a passion for ambient/obscure soundscapes, that Max/MSP is something of a revelation for me, and in these few months I've gotten pretty close to achieving a preliminary aim to have max controlling all aspects of logic pro's plugin parameters etc with lfos of all kinds, and sequencers in max with amazing features like patch interpolation triggering Logic's Audio Instruments..I'ts very close to being my own little digital modular synth/fx/mixing setup... Totally blown away by it!!!
      regards, and thanks again leigh
    • leighhunt
      Feb 03 2006 | 10:58 pm
      Yay - I got it!
      All i had to do was place the text files in the same folder as the built app, then reference them with a "read ./filename" message. It worked a treat. Many thanks for your 'nudge'. I have my patcher running successfully here now as a standalone app. regards a happy leigh!