Max MSP and iOS
Hello everybody,
I have been dabbling with iOS development recently, learning a bit of objective C in Xcode (slowly). I have heard of people using PD patches in their apps as is explained in this post:
So, I was wondering what the deal is with Max when it comes to this? Is it only PD, or can max patches be integrated into iOS devices? Perhaps exporting the patches in code through Gen might help? It would be awesome to have all of the inner workings made in max instead of having to figure out how to learn "proper" code.
Thanks for your help,
Iyad
Is it only PD, or can max patches be integrated into iOS devices?
Gotta use Pd for this. The idea is that you are using libpd which more or less lets you run Pd inside your other code (allowing you to load Pd patches). I could be wrong but I think this only works for standard Pd not Pd-extended (or for using other 3rd party Pd externals). That being said, it should be possible to build your own version of libpd that includes other objects.
Perhaps exporting the patches in code through Gen might help?
While internally Gen patches are translated into C or GLSL—if I'm not mistaken—code to then be compiled, all you get for now is the ability to use the compiled patch in Max6. The devs at Cycling '74 have said that the ability to generate C/GLSL code from Gen patches is on their todo list, but I wouldn't wait for that at the moment since Gen is still very new and I think there are other things they may want to be working on for Gen within Max before working on that feature (not that I'm trying to put words in the devs mouths).
Thanks for your reply. I guess I will have to learn how to use PD then! It just looks so scary compared to max. Youtube tutorials here I come..
Iyad
In another post Joshua Kit Clayton posted this as a use for Gen:
"In the future: - You want to program visually and get output as source code for use in other programs which you are working on as a developer"
https://cycling74.com/forums/topic.php?id=35704
Just to be clear, would this mean that I could make a patch entirely in Max 6 and then export the code for use in an iOS authoring environment? I have very limited experience in text based coding but I'm fairly good within environments like Max, would be great to code things in this way, its pretty central to a project I'm working on at the moment in fact...
Hi Barry, it's very difficult to talk about a hypothetical feature future without leading people to jump to conclusions, but here goes. When we do implement the ability to export code from Gen, it will be restricted to the Gen domain. What that means is that the exported code will not include anything outside of the Gen object. So, if there is a DSP idea that you have that could fit into a Gen patcher, that would work, but all the outside interface stuff, metros, and such will not be exported. Again, no promises about when or how this functionality will be introduced, but it's on the to-do list.
See posts by Brad Garton in the following two threads, regarding work that Damon Holzborn is doing at Columbia: