bodsiin

The aim of the project itself is to reduce the learning curve for Max novice users.

practical-starting-guide-to-maxmspjitter

Practical starting guide to Max/MSP/Jitter

Florian Demmer

Over the coming weeks, we’re going to be looking at the documentation for Max 8 and some of the resources built into the Max application itself intended to aid you in your Max patching life. For the first article in this series, I'm going to start with some basic questions: When you go looking for answers using Max 8, what’s precisely being searched? Where does Max 8 look in response to your queries? What can you do with the results?

You’ve probably noticed that Max lets you reference and use files created using Max — as abstractions, for example — by using just a file name instead of having to always use a full pathname on your hard drive. Max does that by means of a search path: a flat namespace built into Max that describes a group of folders and files on your machine that lets you refer to a file by its name. When you install Max, a default search path will be created for you automatically (You can read more about the default search path here). If you want to add folders to the default search path, you can choose Options > File Preferences to display the Max File Preferences Window and add/remove folders to your search path. 

You may find it useful to set up your own folders for things like third-party Max objects or your own abstraction libraries in a specific place on your computer for ease of user or so that they won’t be accidentally overwritten when you update or install a new version of Max.

Max includes a File Browser utility that lets you search, organize, and explore the files in your search path. To display the File Browser,  choose File > Show File Browser:

The File Browser uses a query language that lets you search for files by their kind (e.g. audio or video files), search for Packages or Max collections and gives you several helpful options for narrowing down your file searches (searching within a specific folder, searching for partial file name, and searching by modification dates or for recently used files).

You can use the File Browser to organize files by attributes like location or kind using an advanced search syntax  that can be saved for later use — simply clear the search input field to see the usage info. Additionally, you can group arbitrary files together using the collections feature.

To give you quick access to your files as you patch the left-hand toolbar provides small versions of the File Browser grouped by kind.

The File Browser is also useful when you encounter unexpected behavior or conflicts in your Search Path. It can help to find and identify files that might be using the same name.

While the File Browser can be really useful when it comes to looking for file resources in your search path, it’s sometimes the case that you’re not exactly certain of what to look for. In those situations, the ability to do keyword or phrase based searches can be really helpful.

Max 8  includes a new search feature that lets you perform searches across your search path that are content-aware; While the File Browser lets you search for file names and their attributes, Max 8’s search increases the accessibility of content in your searches to include 

Max’s documentation, reference files, and examples

Comments or text that are part of a patcher or example 

Plug-in metadata and any tagging done to Max files

To use Max 8’s search features, click on the search button (the magnifying glass) located in the right-hand toolbar of any Max patcher window and type your query into the text box

The results of your search will be displayed according to categories:

In addition to using your Search path, the Max 8 search feature also searches beyond the confines of your machine and will display the following information:

Max Packages available through the Package Manager

The documentation and reference for Max 8 uses the same search infrastructure as the sidebar search to allow you to perform the same fast and improved search queries right from the reference window.

Since search results are sorted by relevance and grouped by type, you can quickly move back and forth from help files to example patches to tutorials as you look around.

Want to drill down into the results you get? Just click on "Show more results"

The act of looking around at search results is often the place where you encounter not only the solutions you were searching for, but also new ways of doing things that had little to do with your initial question. The new Max 8 search makes it more likely that new users will encounter a broader range of possible solutions while providing different paths of inquiry for even the most seasoned user..

Checking individual search results is a double-click or a click-and-drag away. Want to check out a tutorial, a ref page, an online Article, a Package,  or a Forum posting? Just double-click on a result and you’ll be shown what you’re looking for.

Investigating Max objects or Gen operators puts you a double-click away from a refpage or helpfile. When it comes to one of the many examples that come with Max, opening the patch is also a double-click away, or you can drag and drop patchers or snippets into your patcher window to create a subpatcher that contains that content.

Note: You can also use drag-and-drop when hunting for movies, audio files, or still images, too – clicking and dragging a movie or audio file to your patcher window will create a playlist~ or jit.playlist object with your audio or movie loaded and ready to go.

Finally, we’ve updated the online hosted version of the Max Documentation to provide improved accessibility when reading/using reference materials online, and to provide a similar searching experience as you have when working with Max's in-app search facilities. You can find the online documentation here.

FileBrowser-feature.jpg

We're going to be looking at the documentation for Max 8 and some of the resources built into the Max application itself intended to aid you in your Max patching life. For the first article in this series, I'm going to start with a basic questions: When you go looking for answers using Max 8, what’s precisely being searched? where does Max 8 look in response to your queries? What can you do with the results?

looking-for-answers-in-max-8

Looking For Answers in Max 8

Gregory Taylor

Lilli Wessling Hart

I qualify as a beginner because I've been one. Three times, in fact.


If you really are a beginner, then you'll never have to face learning Max, then learning MSP a bunch of years later, and then learning Jitter after that. You get to learn them all at once, and since they all have a lot more in common with each other than not, you needn't endure what seemed to me to be paradigm shifts with the introduction of each new bit.

I envy you, actually. And I'm about to envy you even more, since it occurs to me that I can tell you some of the things I wish people had told me that might have made my life easier.

In fact, I asked a few friends and acquaintances and some of the people whose names you see often on the Max list what they wish they'd known early on. And you'll be seeing those things periodically appearing in bite=sized chunks. There were a few bits of advice I got from other people that I don't agree with, but will pass along anyway.

If you want to really get started, don't skip reading the manual marked "Getting Started."

Yes, I know you're a clever person, and--like many people (me included, quite a lot of the time)--consider yourself to be a part of what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes called a "natural Aristocracy": those persons who are innately capable of intuiting the things that other dimmer people read manuals with titles like "Getting Started" in order to figure out. (Discussions about reading Tutorials are best left for another time).

When I started, I thought myself too clever to read anything that said Getting Started, and I spent the next N years making the same silly mistakes over and over again, and never figuring out that there were interesting quick ways of doing things. When others pointed them out to me well into my Maxing life, I assumed that they were mysterious secrets open to the cabal of "power users." It turned out that all the power users had done was to actually read a section in the "Getting Started" PDF manual. The really embarrassing one involved my not knowing for quite a long time what a symbol was. If I'd managed to make it only as far as page 12, I could have been spared a lifetime of heartache, frustration, and grief.

The same thing held true with learning all kinds of interesting shortcuts that made working with Max a whole lot simpler. It turned out that the only thing that the Max aristocracy did that I never managed was to actually take a look at a whole chapter in the "Getting Started" manual called "shortcuts." Using the Shift key when you place an object to make multiple copies of that object? Sure--page 60. Entering the name of an object from the New Object List into an object box without typing a thing (including a nice blank space so you can begin typing arguments)? Power users actually looked at P. 61, and I didn't. Figuring out exactly what messages a Max/MSP/Jitter object accepted? There it was, right on P. 59 (Option-Control-clicking on Macintosh or Alt-Right-clicking on Windows on any object).

Don't get me wrong--there are things that the power user knows that you don't, and we'll be spending some time looking at those things later on. But it turned out that a lot of what I thought was secret knowledge wasn't--it was only a secret if you thought that nothing of any value could possibly be found in a manual called "Getting Started."

I learned this the hard way. You have no excuse. :-)

A lot of what I thought was secret knowledge wasn't--it was only a secret if you thought that nothing of any value could possibly be found in a manual called "Getting Started."

I learned this the hard way. You have no excuse. :-) 

1087

Things I wish people had told me (part zero)

Thanks to the tireless and polite work of Eric Raymond, software users everywhere know what to do before they ask questions about the software they’re using, and they also know how to ask questions in ways that will give the best answers (and yeah – it’s the same Eric Raymond who’s earned our respect with books like this, thanks for asking).

Max 7 will help you to ask better questions more quickly by making it a lot easier to search all of your objects, tutorials, snippets, examples, and guides (Guides? What are those? More on this in a minute) from the patcher window. Here's how:

You can start any search from the patcher window by typing what you want to find into the search window.

A Documentation browser window will appear.

The browser's sidebar lists the kinds of documents you've got access to. These include:

Max/MSP/Jitter objects that relate to what you're looking for


gen~, jit.gen, and jit.gl.pix operators that relate to your search


Code snippets, including the ones you've saved yourself


Max Topics documentation for "big picture" questions


Max/MSP/Jitter tutorials whose content relates to your search


Max Guides documentation, which covers using Max itself (commands shortcuts, the Max interface, and how-to guides to performing smaller) and more specific tasks

One of the nice improvements from Max 6 to Max 7 is a more advanced search algorithm that allows full text searches - typing your full search term and showing all results is totally worth it!

Want to search among the results in the Documentation Window? Type Command-f on a Mac or Control-f on Windows (Yes, it is the same sequence you use to search for Max objects in a patcher window or to search a object's refpage, thanks for asking) to open the search Window. Typing a search term into the search window highlights your search and lets you quick-scroll down the page using the return key.

As with Max 7's Omnibrowser, clicking on a heading in the sidebar will show you a subset of the full results of your search.

If you click on a Tutorial, Guide, or Topic, the Documentation Window sidebar displays the contents of the document in outline form. Point and click in the sidebar to navigate quickly through the document to find the section you're looking for.

Before I Go, Here's A Good Place To Start

Generally speaking, Max 7's Documentation Home Page is a really useful way to explore the documentation that comes with Max 7 if you're looking for something, or if you've got a spare minute and want to explore parts of Max 7 you haven't seen before. (We've added a couple of nice bells and whistles for the seasoned explorer, too.)

Click on the House icon in a Documentation Window to display the Home Page.

In addition to easy links all the Max 7 basics, you'll find a snazzy "example of the day" to remind you of what you either don't know or have forgotten, and a set of links to documentation you've looked at recently. A handy way to start your day.

Scroll down the page just a little further, and you'll find an interface that lets you navigate through the high-level contents of all of the Max/MSP/Jitter/gen tutorials, topics, and guides. Just point and click to display the links.

I hope this is of some help to you. Happy huntingand happy patching!


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