Feature suggestion - busses

Eddy's icon

When working on some patches, I've found that I need to connect a number of sources to a common destination. At present, each individual connection has to be routed from the point of origin to that destination. On more complex patches this leads to a real 'spiders nest' of patch cords snaking through/around the patch.

It struck me that it would be very handy to have a special 'bus' object. This would be a long straight line which is connected to an inlet (or an outlet). Any patch cord could connect to that line at any point, and in doing so would be automatically connected to the object to which the bus was linked.

It does fall under the 'nice to have' category rather than something important but it would certainly help in the construction of complex patches.

Bas van der Graaff's icon

Isn't this almost the same as just aligning your patch cords with command + Y?
They will all share the vertical line, at least...

Anthony Palomba's icon

You can also do this with "send" and "receive".
I often times refer to these as channels or buses.

Jagle's icon

em, segmented patch cords will tidy things up too

Eddy's icon

Yeah, I use all of the above. I was thinking of an additional feature rather than a replacement. It just makes things more tidy in certain complex patches. It's not *needed*, just would be a nice additional feature.

Jagle's icon

hmm perhaps but, it seems kinda against the max/msp system
boxes connected by cables, having a big cable with infinity inputs all leading to one output just seems so weird i guess, and considering there are several ways already to tidy up your patch and improve workflow and presentation of the patch i dont see cycling thinking about this to be honest

Eddy's icon

Perhaps not, I was just thinking aloud really, hence 'suggestion' as opposed to 'request' in the thread title :)