I've never come across auto-patching in Max so my guess is that specific function is unique to PD. If you want to increase your patching speed in regards to patch cord management check out Max Toolbox https://cycling74.com/tools/max-toolbox/ It allows you to use hot keys to patch multiple objects together with different keys representing different patching relationships (one to many, cascade, all to third inlet, etc)

Thank you for your reply ! I didn't know this toolbox. I'm going to try it. It seems nice. I don't understand why Pd has this so useful feature and not Max that let you patch as you type in a text editor. Objects are already connected and at the right place.

Is there a place on the forum for feature request ?

Thanks again.

Cheers

Ok, just tried it. Really nice !

From the manual, it has the auto-patch feature but I can't find how to activate it...

Any idea ?

Hello, I'm the ToolBox author. Sadly the toolbox doesn't feature autopatch like in pd because of the way object creation is handled in max, what document are you referring to ? (it can do pretty useful things though.)

Hello, thank you very much for your answer and, above all, this toolbox. It seems to be a very useful tool. To be honest, so useful that I'm surprised that it isn't 'officially' included in Max. The document I'm referring to is this one : https://code.google.com/p/maxtoolbox/wiki/Documentation

"... Create objects at the cursor position using keyboard shortcuts (à la Pure Data) (objects shortcuts are customizable) ; Create objects at the cursor position using keyboard shortcuts and connect them to a previously selected object, either to the inlet or from the outlet depending on the mouse position...."

And in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcqF9hDNoJk

At 3'17", it seemed to me that you do exactly what I'm looking for.

Cheers

Ah yes, that's a feature that worked for Max 4. Beginning with Max 5 it broke and Cycling implemented object creation using the keyboard on their own (without autoconnect though) so I had to remove it.

Ok. Thanks for having check it out.

So, no hope of getting it back ?

By the way, do you know a way to re-assign these shortcuts ?

Not for the moment... It's not really possible with the current JavaScript API. What shortcut do you want to change ? If you want to change the Toolbox shortcuts there is a shortcut button in the Toolbox entry in the extras menu.

I would like to change the built-in shortcuts : n, i, f, c. To match the Pure Data Cmd+1, Cmd+2 etc which make you patch without looking too much at the keyboard.

i use (old-style, thispatcher based) scripting in max.

great fun with custom objects of 1 inlet and 1 outlet each.

Spip -- Cmd-1 is taken. It resets the magnification of the patcher...

\M

Cmd+1 is taken but it is in a menu. That makes it customisable by the OS via the System Preferences, unlike n, i, f etc.

@Roman Thilenius: where should I look to make a script like that ? Any example ?

I'm using Nat's toolbox since two days and I must say that is a game-changer. So useful that I can't think now using Max without it ;) But I would like to be able to patch without using clicks and mouse all the time. Sometimes, with all due respect, I don't understand Cycling and their arbitrary choices. That was one of the reasons I switched to Pure Data some time ago. I have to use Max this time because of Midi latency. Max is more efficient on this side.

The difficulty in Max is that command and control are reserved and not very accessible. In the max-keycommands.txt file (in the init folder) you can change some shortcuts but you only have access to letters (and uppercase via shift) You could perhaps assign the numbers or their equivalent characters with shift.

the thispatcher helpfile should show most of it. otherwise there is always the reference: https://cycling74.com/docs/max5/refpages/max-ref/thispatcher.html

ok when i think about it, the reference doesnt really shows it all. i personally export patchers as text file in max v4, then look at the text to find out what attributes can and must be set for certain objects. but if we talk about custom abstractions, you only have to find out once how to create a regular objectbox, set its size, object name and arguments. when you want to do the same for bpatchers or multisliders, the script will look different.

@NAT : Thanks for the tip. I already tried to modify this file but with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or Cmd +1 etc and seeing this doesn't work, I gave up.

Right now, I'm using a great little app called BetterTouchTool to assign Cmd+1 to n, Cmd+2 to m etc.

@ROMAN : I'm going to look at [thispatcher] as soon as I have some free time. [thispatcher] seems to be very interesting when used for this sort of thing. So far, I've used it only to open/close a window and didn't look further.

Thank you all for your help !