Interfacing Dictionaries with the Outside World

Dictionaries represent a convenient and powerful way to structure data used within Max. In fact, the Max patcher itself is a dictionary! But the power of the dictionary goes beyond the boundaries of Max. In this 10 minute video, I use JavaScript in Max to send dictionaries across a network to a custom web application written using Node.js.

• Download the patch and files used in this tutorial.

This builds knowledge of dictionary use in the Max patcher as discussed in the excellent Dictionary Patch-of-the-Day thread on the Cycling '74 forum. In that thread, our ringleader Darwin Grosse, and cohorts Ben Bracken and Gregory Taylor give beginning dictionary users a place from which to start that they never had (until now!).

The patching in this video also uses the JavaScript equivalent to Max's maxurl object: `XMLHttpRequest`. My favorite introduction to this topic is Andrew Benson's fabulous Max patcher for pulling images from Instagram to build a collage.

Happy Patching!