phillipm@ohio.edu

There must be some easy way (that doesn't involve projects) to get max to include certain folders in its search path when loading files. I want to have a folder with a Max patch that references several folders each containing numerous carefully organized sound files.

user-programable-search-patch

The apparent problem with doing this as a max project is that all media files in the various sub-folders get emptied into a single folder named "media" ... which is precisely what I am looking to avoid. Also ... Max search path messages seem to require a full search path rather than simply starting is search right there in the original folder where the patch resides.

I am attaching a mock-up of the structure I am looking for. I don't necessarily need the "media" level of the structure. But it's important to note that each of the various "filefolders" could have folders within them. I want to be able to drop the "parent" folder on any Mac and have it find the files.

Not sure if this is a solution for you, but I've used this in the past:

names of your sound file directories go in the coll, and these names used to form a readfolder message for different polybuffers.

limitations are you have to know the names of each folder and the number of folders, and these can't be changed by the user, but this could be overcome by some extra patching/scripting (....famous last words)

btw, this isn't in the context of projects or packages, but you may be able to adapt it-- the audio folders are presumed to be in the same parent folder as the patch that uses them

names of your sound file directories go in the coll, and these names used to form a readfolder message for different polybuffers.
limitations are you have to know the names of each folder and the number of folders, and these can't be changed by the user, but this could be overcome by some extra patching/scripting (....famous last words)

btw, this isn't in the context of projects or packages, but you may be able to adapt it-- the audio folders are presumed to be in the same parent folder as the patch that uses them


sorry-- slightly misleading , in this example the audio folders need to be in a folder called "My_Sound_Files" which is in the same parent folder as the patch that uses them (which I believe is what you want)

sorry-- slightly misleading , in this example the audio folders need to be  in a folder called "My_Sound_Files" which is in the same parent folder as the patch that uses them (which I believe is what you want)


After some experimentation and minor tweaking, I am using a solution similar to this:

https://cycling74.com/forums/how-to-register-a-folder-and-subfolder-into-filepath/

It certainly seems like it should be *much* easier to accomplish than this. I am thinking something like a checkbox in the patcher inspector to include or not include all folders and subfolders in the current directory of the Max patch.

After some experimentation and  minor tweaking, I am using a solution similar to this:
https://cycling74.com/forums/how-to-register-a-folder-and-subfolder-into-filepath/

 It certainly seems like it should be *much* easier to accomplish than this. I am thinking something like a checkbox in the patcher inspector  to include or not include all folders and subfolders in the current directory  of the Max patch. 

user programable search patch...?