hi there,

it's happening more and more frequently to see people asking for generic help, like can anyone help me? in my brain pd is just an ensemble of squares and lines.

i think it's time to put a sticky post in the technical issues section, or maybe in the root of the forum itself, with a list of updated resources useful to learn pd, gem and other pd-related things. i know this stuff is already present somewhere in the forum but having it all in the same place would be nice for beginners and save us some cut and paste job.

we could start by collecting down here all the stuff we have and then try to put a list together. just a thought.

I think this is a good idea. The thread we have now is really out of date and broken (I can't even read past page one...anyone else have that problem, btw?). It might be a little more fitting in the Tutorials section, though. I don't really have a problem with pushing that section up above Technical Issues so it gets noticed more. But at any rate, we can discuss that here as well as add some helpful links.

Here's some of the ones that immediately come to mind for me:

Programming Electronic Music in Pd - by Johannes Kriedler
Pd Floss Manual
Obiwannabe - Andy Farnell's site
Theory and Technique of Electronic Music - Miller's book (not exactly newbie friendly, but still good info)

cool, for the list of the essential ones:

also i think it's important to write a note about using the help browser included in pd-extended. i'm surprised by how many newbies are actually ignoring that (same thing for the right click contextual help).

@guido said:

cool, for the list of the essential ones:

also i think it's important to write a note about using the help browser included in pd-extended. i'm surprised by how many newbies are actually ignoring that (same thing for the right click contextual help).

guido, can you do that??

i had a skateboard accident and have my arm in plaster for a while. slow typing!!!

maybe a tutorial "using pd's help files" or something would be great.

we can add sticky, move , tidy up, alter the tutorials section to make it more obvious .... what's everyone's suggestions?

I'm thinking we could all make preliminary suggestions here to get a starting list, and then mod or I could make a sticky post in Tutorials with the list. Then when new ones spring up, people can comment on it and mod or I can modify the original post and add it. That way, people won't have to scroll through looking for updated links.

It'd be nice if we can find links that deal with some specific parts of Pd as well, like GEM/Gridflow, Arduino, TouchOSC (PLEASE someone write a tutorial for this if there isn't a good one online somewhere), etc.

And I agree, guido, we should put a bit about the help browser. I'm thinking someone could make a post about it in Tutorials, and then link to that from the sticky. If you're not up for it, I can probably throw something together later tonight.

I've heard that Miller has some video lectures somewhere, but I've never seen them. Does anyone know where they might be?

I just had a thought: what if instead of making a huge list in one place like Tutorials, we split up lists that are relevant to the different sections. So Pixel# could have a list of GEM and Gridflow links; I/O Hardware could have Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc. links; extra~ has programming links; and Technical issues maybe just has the general Pd links.

That might be a little more work, but it could also make them more noticeable. Thoughts?

sounds a bit of work to update.

what about just one list with subsections?