you have to send a message "rate 1." to jit.qt.movie when you release mousebutton. The first outlet of "mousestate" gives you information if the mouse button is pressed, so you could connect a "sel 0" object to it that bangs the "rate 1."-message

in theory that should work. i also smoothed out the incoming number since they were chaotic, but still nothing responsive.

You're probably sending 1. to "rate $1" while [line] is still running, thus having that value always changed to [line]'s target value. Using that logic, you can either gate the [line] and send a 1. directly to the rate parameter, or otherwise send 1. to the [line] object itself, which will override the last target value.

Here is a solution with two [gate] objects.

i am a bit confused. and the patch seems to lock the values. i guess I'm trying to understand why the select isn't connected to anything and why you would need two gates. to clarify, the static, non active mouse state value is right outlet next to incoming y axis values. could you maybe illustrate it a bit more clear in a patch? sorry Im pretty new and it takes me a bit to conceptually grasp these concepts.

its canceling out the smoothing of the numbers this way of the y axis. suggestions?

Here is a more elaborate explanation..

HTH

great clarification! thanks so much. i just need to find a better smoother for outputting number values that isn't using "line"