Custom Tutorials?
I’d like to have custom tutorials, which should appear in the form of Max ones.
I’ve made some tries, and I can have them provided that:
– I have to modify "by hand" the cycling 74 "doc-lookup.json" file. Of course it’s invasive and I don’t want to do it. Differently from obj-lookup, it appears that doc-lookup does not search for other similar files to add parts of information… The best would be that I have my own "doc-lookup.json" in my "interface" package folder. Is there a way to make it work?
– I have to have my tutorials in the Max tutorials folder and NOT in my package one, otherwise they don’t work. How can I do in order to have them in my package?
In any case, I haven’t found any way to list them as a separate category in the index…
Thanks,
Daniele
I would love this. Imagine if we could share tutorials?
Speaking as someone who needed a tutorial to find the help menu, I wholeheartedly support this proposition.
Hi Daniele,
since Max6.1 you don’t have to modify the json files anymore. Only thing you have to do is copying the whole folder structure with all files(xml, css, xsl..) from "Max 6.1/patches/docs"(I’m not sure which one are really needed) to "Max 6.1/packages/yourPackage" and put your stuff into refpages, tutorial-patchers and tutorials. Somehow then Max is capable of resolving the links etc.. I did not manage to create my own category, so I made the note~ doc accessible from the help file using the tag in the note-ref file. Then all your tutorials will appear under the "?"-tab in the help file.
Let me know if you need more specific information.
Cheers,
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
thanks a lot for your help. I had tried exactly as you say: the reference pages work properly (but they are shown in Max 5 view; yet there’s no other way for third parties to show references in Max6-style), but the tutorials don’t. I link them as "see also" tags in the reference xml files, so they correctly appear in the "?" menu, but they don’t work: when I click on them, a blank reference is shown. How can you have them appearing in the "?" menu otherwise?
And how can you have them open properly? Are your tutorials .maxtut.xml files?
On the other hand, I think I might help on how to create a category: you need your own json (works starting from 6.1) Have a look at this thread:
http://cycling74.com/forums/topic/explorer-autocompletion-and-basic-attributes-in-max6/
Thanks again,
Daniele
Ok, I’ve totally forgotten that I deactivated "Use New Documentation Rendering" in the Max Preferences which is possible since Max 6.1.
Then you get the old Max 5 documentation style and it will work the way I described.
I’ve given this a lot of thought and could not come up with a good/clean solution. I implemented an
"updateDoc" function which the user can call the first time he uses note~ which creates a copy of the original doc-lookup.json and adds all the stuff for note~. The user then have to manually rename the original file to doc-lookup_backup.json and name the created file doc-lookup.json.
I think with the upcoming release I will let the user choose to either use the old doc style or do the update on the json file. The good thing is, if other developers choose to do it in a similar way, all other 3rd party json updates would also be there after the note~ installation. If you like I can send you the function, but it is basically only a lot of strncpy() and system_ptrandhand() calls..
Maybe cycling’74 can give us an update on the situation?
Cheers,
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
thanks a lot for your hints (I hadn’t even realized there was a "Use New Documentation Rendering" preference…).
Nevertheless, writing inside the original doc-lookup.json is the "invasive" solution I really didn’t like… especially now that everything has become so clear thanks to packages! Asking the user to turn "new documentation rendering" looks like a better option to me, yet very annoying…
If package-based custom doc-lookup.json might be supported in a not-too-far-future, I’d prefer to wait. Otherwise I’ll consider the "invasive" solution.
Maybe cycling’74 can give us an update about this custom doc-lookup.json possibility? Even in Max5-styled case (as for the reference), that would be really helpful!
Cheers,
Daniele
Hi Thomas,
I have a further question: how did you manage to have your links in tutorials working? I’d simply want the tutorial to show a link which would open a patch (located in the search path, of course). I’ve tried (substitute angle brackets to {…}: it appears I cannot post such XML specifications within a forum post…)
{openfile name="mypatch" patch="mypatch.maxpat"/}
but it doesn’t work.
Even the copy-paste of
{openfile name="01mHello" patch="01mHello.maxpat"/}
does not work either.
Do you maybe have a solution for this issue?
Or anybody else does?
Thanks a lot!
Daniele
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