Indeed there is. It's probably not documented because there's no JS function for it per se, but you can build your own. Below is an example of how to retrieve the names of all matrices in a patch. The basic technique is to iterate through patcher objects and use the JS functions connect()/disconnect() to invisibly talk to patcher objects without a user ever seeing actual patch coords.

wes

-------------------clipping: gathermatrices.pat

---------------

---------------js: xray.gathernames.js------- var p = this.patcher; var obj; var matrixNames = new Array(); var counter = 0; var self = this.box;

function bang() { counter = 0; obj = p.firstobject;

//limit search to first 100 objects while(obj && counter < 100) { if(obj.maxclass == "jit.matrix") { p.connect(obj, 1, self, 0); obj.message("getname"); p.disconnect(obj, 1, self, 0); }

obj = obj.nextobject; counter++; }

fillmenu(); counter = 0; }

function name(matrixname) { if(! alreadyexists(matrixname)) matrixNames[matrixNames.length] = matrixname; }

function alreadyexists(matrixname) { var exists = 0;

for(i=0; i < matrixNames.length; i++) { if(matrixNames[i] == matrixname) { exists = 1; } }

return exists; }

function fillmenu() { outlet(0, "clear");

//make ubumenu prepend outlet(0, "prefix_mode", 1); outlet(0, "prefix", "name");

for(i=0; i < matrixNames.length; i++) { outlet(0, "append", matrixNames[i]); } }

Nice, I just had the same question.

Wes, your solution is a nice workaround but as far as I can see it has two drawbacks: 1) when sending the message getname, the name is also ouput in the max patch. 2) this only works when the object who's info you need is in the same patch

How about a method that, like [grab], retreives the results of a message? Something like this:

var name = myMaxObj.grab("getname", 2); // second argument is the outlet to retrieve

So is there a better way to do this now? I want to query the value of an object from js...

Anybody?

Quote: Anthony Palomba wrote on Mon, 02 June 2008 15:39 ---------------------------------------------------- > Anybody? ----------------------------------------------------

No.. no better way.