DominikK

while trying to put a slider object to work I was wondering about it's behavior when it's set to having negatives values.

If I have a slider with minimum value -1. and range of 2 (float output) and I send a "0." or "set 0." message, shouldn't the slider jump to the middle position where it actually outputs 0.? Instead it jumps to -1. as if 0 meant "jump to minimum value" and 1 "jump to maximum value".

That's somehow inconsistent compared to what a slider does when its range is positive.

while trying to put a slider object to work I was wondering about it's behavior when it's set to having negatives values.
If I have a slider with minimum value -1. and range of 2 (float output) and I send a "0." or "set 0." message, shouldn't the slider jump to the middle position where it actually outputs 0.? Instead it jumps to -1. as if 0 meant "jump to minimum value" and 1 "jump to maximum value".
That's somehow inconsistent compared to what a slider does when its range is positive.
Am I missing something?

best
dominikk


Hello,
while trying to put a slider object to work I was wondering about it's behavior when it's set to having negatives values.
If I have a

set-negative-slider-values

never noticed before, but you can use multislider instead of slider

It's best to think of the 'minimum' as the 'offset' that will be added to whatever comes in the inlet. For an integer slider, the range will be 'range' different integers from 0 to range-1, plus offset, whereas for a float slider the range will be the full range from 0. to range., inclusive, plus offset.

it is a silly behavior, you would think that a GUI object alsways outputs what it gets as input (and i second the reference to the mslider object as alternative), but it has historical purposes, so dont be angry at it.

Thanks for the answers. I expected it to be one of the infamous historical max behaviours. I just couldn't believe that I never noticed it in all these years of max.

You can think of it as a sort of scale object hidden inside the slider. It's the 'hidden' aspect that makes it problematic, and the somewhat deceptive word 'minimum', which refers to the minimum output, not the minimum input.

if you want it to be a part of a collection of objects all dealing with thi skind of range, it might be easier to add the offset outside. set it base 0 , range 2, then do -1 at the output, nothing at the input.

Set negative slider values