@ddw_music said:

I still think Tcl/Tk has failed to keep up with modern standards, and I have my doubts that it will ever catch up. So, I still think that Pd hampers its own progress by hitching itself to the Tcl/Tk wagon.

I think most people agree with you, myself included. Tk is clunky but it's in the current code base and has been kept so far since it works, although admittedly barely in many cases.

The last couple of posts here are encouraging.

I know development is slow, but it's really working against inertia. Momentum has been growing the last years and that's mostly due to more effective collaboration to tackle some of these issues. I think finding a sustainable approach to the GUI is one of the largest ones, so is taking a while to grow.

IMO a fair comparison is: normal screen size in Linux vs normal screen size in Mac.

Nope. See above.

Developer vs user perspective. The user sees clean diagonals on Mac, and jagged diagonals on Linux or Windows, and I think it's perfectly legitimate for the user not really to care that it's the OS rather than the drawing engine that makes it so in Mac. (It's correct, of course, to point out that the diagonals on a retina display will look smoother than antialiased diagonals without retina.)

Yup, you are totally right. I didn't mean to imply the Linux screenshot looked good since "that's the way it is" just more that it looks so much better on macOS since the screenshot is likely double the resolution as well.

I started using Pd on Windows circa 2006 then jumped to Linux for many years, then to macOS. My feeling was that Pd worked best on Linux but a lot of that has caught up as the underlying systems have developed but in some ways the Linux desktop has not (for many reasons, good and bad).

1. Your point (c) already happened... you can use Purr Data (or the new Pd-L2ork etc). The GUI is implemented in Node/Electron/JS (I'm not sure of the details). Is it tracking Pd vanilla releases?... well that's a different issue.

I did try Purr Data, but abandoned it because (at the time, two years ago), Purr Data on Mac didn't support Gem and there were no concrete plans to address that. This might have changed in the last couple of years (has it? -- I've looked at https://agraef.github.io/purr-data/ and https://github.com/agraef/purr-data but it seems not quite straightforward to determine whether Gem+Mac has been added or not).

That's a result of many of the forks adopting the "kitchen sink" monolithic distribution model inherited from Pd-extended. The user gets the environment and many external libraries all together in one download, but the developers have to integrate changes from upstream themselves and build for the various platforms. It's less overheard for the user but more for the developers, which is why integrating a frankly large and complicated external like GEM is harder.

I'm happy to download the deken GEM package because I know the IEM people have done all the craziness to build it (it's a small nightmare of autotools/makefiles due to the amount of plugins and configuration options). I am also very happy to not have to build it and provide it to other users but in exchange we ask people to do that extra step and use deken. I recognize that the whole usage of [declare] is still not as easy or straightforward for many beginners. There are some thoughts of improving it and feedback for people in the teaching environment has also pushed certain solutions (ie. Pd Documents folder, etc).

Tracking vanilla releases was the other issue. A couple of years ago, [soundfiler] in Purr Data was older and didn't provide the full set of sound file stats. That issue had been logged and I'm sure it's been updated since then. "Tracking" seemed to be manual, case-by-case.

By "tracking" I am referring to a fork following the new developments in Pd-vanilla and integrating the changes. This becomes harder if/when the forks deviate with internal changes to the source code, so merging some changes then has to be done "by hand" which slows things down and is one reason why a fork may release a new version but be perhaps 1 or two versions behind Pd vanilla's internal objects, ie. new [soundfiler] right outlet, [clone] object, new [file] object, etc.

2. As for updating Tk, it's probably not likely to happen as advanced graphics are not their focus. I could be wrong about this.

I agree that updating the GUI itself is the better solution for the long run. I also agree that it's a big undertaking when the current implementation is essentially still working fine after over 20 years...

Well, I mean, OK up to a point. There are things like the Tcl/Tk open/save file dialog, which is truly abhorrent in Linux.

Hah yeah, I totally understand. My first contribution to Pd(-extended) was to find out how to disable showing hidden files in the open/save panels on Linux. You would open a dialog, it defaulted to $HOME, then you had to wade through 100 dot folders. Terrible! Who did this and why? Well it wasn't on purpose, it was just the default setting for panels on Tk, and I added a little but of Tcl to turn it off and show a "Show hidden files/folders" button below.

OTOH I have a colleague at work who's internal toolkit still uses Motif. Why? Well it still works and he's the only user so he's ok with it. I'd say that Tk also still uses Motif... but there are many users and they have much different expectations. ;P

Some puzzling decisions here and there -- for example, when you use the mouse to drag an object to another location, why does it then switch to edit the text in the object box? To me, this is a disruptive workflow -- you're moving an object, not editing the object, but suddenly (without warning) you're forcibly switched into editing the object, and it takes a clumsy action of clicking outside the object and dragging the mouse into the object to get back to positioning mode. I feel so strongly about it that I even put in a PR to change that behavior (https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/922), which has been open for a year and a half without being either merged or rejected (only argued against initially, and then stalled).

Ah yes, I forgot about this one. It wasn't rejected, just came at a time when there were lots of other things shouting much louder, ie. if this isn't fixed Pd is broken on $PLATFORM. I would say that, personally, your initial posting style turned me off but I recognize where the frustration came from. I also appreciate making the point AND providing a solution, so the ball is in our court for sure. I will take a look at this soon and try it out.

"Still working for 20 years" but you could also say, still clunky for 20 years, with inertia when somebody does actually try to fix something.

Another approach would be to try to bring improvements to Tcl/Tk itself but the dev community is a little opaque, more so than Pd. However I admit to not having put a ton of time into it, other than flagging our custom patches to the TK macOS guy on Github.

WRT to the rest, any architectural improvements (e.g. drawing abstractions so that the Pd core isn't so tightly coupled to Tcl/Tk) that make it more feasible to move forward are great, would love to see it.

As would I... we are preparing for a major exhibition opening in December, but I will have some time off after and I may take a stab at a technical demo for this (among other things) then pull in some other perspectives / testers. It has been an itch I have wanted to scratch since, at least Pd Con 2016 in NYC.

Howdy all,

I just found this and want to respond from my perspective as someone who has spent by now a good amount of time (paid & unpaid) working on the Pure Data source code itself.

I'm just writing for myself and don't speak for Miller or anyone else.

Mac looks good

The antialiasing on macOS is provided by the system and utilized by Tk. It's essentially "free" and you can enable or disable it on the canvas. This is by design as I believe Apple pushed antialiasing at the system level starting with Mac OS X 1.

There are even some platform-specific settings to control the underlying CoreGraphics settings which I think Hans tried but had issues with: https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/blob/master/tcl/apple_events.tcl#L16. As I recall, I actually disabled the font antialiasing as people complained that the canvas fonts on mac were "too fuzzy" while Linux was "nice and crisp."

In addition, the last few versions of Pd have had support for "Retina" high resolution displays enabled and the macOS compositor does a nice job of handling the point to pixel scaling for you, for free, in the background. Again, Tk simply uses the system for this and you can enable/disable via various app bundle plist settings and/or app defaults keys.

This is why the macOS screenshots look so good: antialiasing is on and it's likely the rendering is at double the resolution of the Linux screenshot.

IMO a fair comparison is: normal screen size in Linux vs normal screen size in Mac.

Nope. See above.

It could also just be Apple holding back a bit of the driver code from the open source community to make certain linux/BSD never gets quite as nice as OSX on their hardware, they seem to like to play such games, that one key bit of code that is not free and you must license from them if you want it and they only license it out in high volume and at high cost.

Nah. Apple simply invested in antialiasing via its accelerated compositor when OS X was released. I doubt there are patents or licensing on common antialiasing algorithms which go back to the 60s or even earlier.

tkpath exists, why not use it?

Last I checked, tkpath is long dead. Sure, it has a website and screenshots (uhh Mac OS X 10.2 anyone?) but the latest (and only?) Sourceforge download is dated 2005. I do see a mirror repo on Github but it is archived and the last commit was 5 years ago.

And I did check on this, in fact I spent about a day (unpaid) seeing if I could update the tkpath mac implementation to move away from the ATSU (Apple Type Support) APIs which were not available in 64 bit. In the end, I ran out of energy and stopped as it would be too much work, too many details, and likely to not be maintained reliably by probably anyone.

It makes sense to help out a thriving project but much harder to justify propping something up that is barely active beyond "it still works" on a couple of platforms.

Why aren't the fonts all the same yet?!

I also despise how linux/windows has 'bold' for default

I honestly don't really care about this... but I resisted because I know so many people do and are used to it already. We could clearly and easily make the change but then we have to deal with all the pushback. If you went to the Pd list and got an overwhelming consensus and Miller was fine with it, then ok, that would make sense. As it was, "I think it should be this way because it doesn't make sense to me" was not enough of a carrot for me to personally make and support the change.

Maybe my problem is that I feel a responsibility for making what seems like a quick and easy change to others?

And this view is after having put an in ordinate amount of time just getting (almost) the same font on all platforms, including writing and debugging a custom C Tcl extension just to load arbitrary TTF files on Windows.

Why don't we add abz, 123 to Pd? xyzzy already has it?!

What I've learned is that it's much easier to write new code than it is to maintain it. This is especially true for cross platform projects where you have to figure out platform intricacies and edge cases even when mediated by a common interface like Tk. It's true for any non-native wrapper like QT, WXWidgets, web browsers, etc.

Actually, I am pretty happy that Pd's only core dependencies a Tcl/Tk, PortAudio, and PortMidi as it greatly lowers the amount of vectors for bitrot. That being said, I just spent about 2 hours fixing the help browser for mac after trying Miller's latest 0.52-0test2 build. The end result is 4 lines of code.

For a software community to thrive over the long haul, it needs to attract new users. If new users get turned off by an outdated surface presentation, then it's harder to retain new users.

Yes, this is correct, but first we have to keep the damn thing working at all. I think most people agree with you, including me when I was teaching with Pd.

I've observed, at times, when someone points out a deficiency in Pd, the Pd community's response often downplays, or denies, or gets defensive about the deficiency. (Not always, but often enough for me to mention it.) I'm seeing that trend again here. Pd is all about lines, and the lines don't look good -- and some of the responses are "this is not important" or (oid) "I like the fact that it never changed." That's... thoroughly baffling to me.

I read this as "community" = "active developers." It's true, some people tend to poo poo the same reoccurring ideas but this is largely out of years of hearing discussions and decisions and treatises on the list or the forum or facebook or whatever but nothing more. In the end, code talks, even better, a working technical implementation that is honed with input from people who will most likely end up maintaining it, without probably understanding it completely at first.

This was very hard back on Sourceforge as people had to submit patches(!) to the bug tracker. Thanks to moving development to Github and the improvement of tools and community, I'm happy to see the new engagement over the last 5-10 years. This was one of the pushes for me to help overhaul the build system to make it possible and easy for people to build Pd itself, then they are much more likely to help contribute as opposed to waiting for binary builds and unleashing an unmanageable flood of bug reports and feature requests on the mailing list.

I know it's not going to change anytime soon, because the current options are a/ wait for Tcl/Tk to catch up with modern rendering or b/ burn Pd developer cycles implementing something that Tcl/Tk will(?) eventually implement or c/ rip the guts out of the GUI and rewrite the whole thing using a modern graphics framework like Qt. None of those is good (well, c might be a viable investment in the future -- SuperCollider, around 2010-2011, ripped out the Cocoa GUIs and went to Qt, and the benefits have been massive -- but I know the developer resources aren't there for Pd to dump Tcl/Tk).

A couple of points:

1. Your point (c) already happened... you can use Purr Data (or the new Pd-L2ork etc). The GUI is implemented in Node/Electron/JS (I'm not sure of the details). Is it tracking Pd vanilla releases?... well that's a different issue.

2. As for updating Tk, it's probably not likely to happen as advanced graphics are not their focus. I could be wrong about this.

I agree that updating the GUI itself is the better solution for the long run. I also agree that it's a big undertaking when the current implementation is essentially still working fine after over 20 years, especially since Miller's stated goal was for 50 year project support, ie. pieces composed in the late 90s should work in 2040. This is one reason why we don't just "switch over to QT or Juce so the lines can look like Max." At this point, Pd is aesthetically more Max than Max, at least judging by looking at the original Ircam Max documentation in an archive closet at work.

A way forward: libpd?

I my view, the best way forward is to build upon Jonathan Wilke's work in Purr Data for abstracting the GUI communication. He essentially replaced the raw Tcl commands with abstracted drawing commands such as "draw rectangle here of this color and thickness" or "open this window and put it here."

For those that don't know, "Pd" is actually two processes, similar to SuperCollider, where the "core" manages the audio, patch dsp/msg graph, and most of the canvas interaction event handling (mouse, key). The GUI is a separate process which communicates with the core over a localhost loopback networking connection. The GUI is basically just opening windows, showing settings, and forwarding interaction events to the core. When you open the audio preferences dialog, the core sends the current settings to the GUI, the GUI then sends everything back to the core after you make your changes and close the dialog. The same for working on a patch canvas: your mouse and key events are forwarded to the core, then drawing commands are sent back like "draw object outline here, draw osc~ text here inside. etc."

So basically, the core has almost all of the GUI's logic while the GUI just does the chrome like scroll bars and windows. This means it could be trivial to port the GUI to other toolkits or frameworks as compared to rewriting an overly interconnected monolithic application (trust me, I know...).

Basically, if we take Jonathan's approach, I feel adding a GUI communication abstraction layer to libpd would allow for making custom GUIs much easier. You basically just have to respond to the drawing and windowing commands and forward the input events.

Ideally, then each fork could use the same Pd core internally and implement their own GUIs or platform specific versions such as a pure Cocoa macOS Pd. There is some other re-organization that would be needed in the C core, but we've already ported a number of improvements from extended and Pd-L2ork, so it is indeed possible.

Also note: the libpd C sources are now part of the pure-data repo as of a couple months ago...

Discouraging Initiative?!

But there's a big difference between "we know it's a problem but can't do much about it" vs "it's not a serious problem." The former may invite new developers to take some initiative. The latter discourages initiative. A healthy open source software community should really be careful about the latter.

IMO Pd is healthier now than it has been as long as I've know it (2006). We have so many updates and improvements over every release the last few years, with many contributions by people in this thread. Thank you! THAT is how we make the project sustainable and work toward finding solutions for deep issues and aesthetic issues and usage issues and all of that.

We've managed to integrate a great many changes from Pd-Extended into vanilla and open up/decentralize the externals and in a collaborative manner. For this I am also grateful when I install an external for a project.

At this point, I encourage more people to pitch in. If you work at a university or institution, consider sponsoring some student work on specific issues which volunteering developers could help supervise, organize a Pd conference or developer meetup (this are super useful!), or consider some sort of paid residency or focused project for artists using Pd. A good amount of my own work on Pd and libpd has been sponsored in many of these ways and has helped encourage me to continue.

This is likely to be more positive toward the community as a whole than banging back and forth on the list or the forum. Besides, I'd rather see cool projects made with Pd than keep talking about working on Pd.

That being said, I know everyone here wants to see the project continue and improve and it will. We are still largely opening up the development and figuring how to support/maintain it. As with any such project, this is an ongoing process.

Out

Ok, that was long and rambly and it's way past my bed time.

Good night all.

I wanted to build PD on Windows 10 to get ASIO support. I failed when I used the "Source" files from the PD website. I succeeded when I used source that I cloned from Github. I followed the same instructions from the wiki both when I failed and when I succeeded. (They are the same as in the manual, just a little more concise.)

I am sharing below my terminal output from the failed build attempts from the downloaded source code (the tar.gz file). Some of these messages suggest that there might be errors in the makefiles. I don't know anything about makefiles, so I can't really interpret the errors. But I did want to pass them along, in case a developer might find them useful. Here you go:

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ ./autogen.sh
libtoolize: putting auxiliary files in AC_CONFIG_AUX_DIR, 'm4/config'.
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/config.guess'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/config.sub'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/install-sh'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/config/ltmain.sh'
libtoolize: putting macros in AC_CONFIG_MACRO_DIRS, 'm4/generated'.
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/libtool.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/ltoptions.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/ltsugar.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/ltversion.m4'
libtoolize: linking file 'm4/generated/lt~obsolete.m4'
configure.ac:166: warning: The macro `AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN' is obsolete.
configure.ac:166: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:8488: AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN is expanded from...
configure.ac:166: the top level
configure.ac:166: warning: AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN: Remove this warning and the call to _LT_SET_OPTION when you
configure.ac:166: put the 'dlopen' option into LT_INIT's first parameter.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/general.m4:2434: AC_DIAGNOSE is expanded from...
aclocal.m4:8488: AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN is expanded from...
configure.ac:166: the top level
configure.ac:167: warning: The macro `AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL' is obsolete.
configure.ac:167: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:8523: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL is expanded from...
configure.ac:167: the top level
configure.ac:167: warning: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL: Remove this warning and the call to _LT_SET_OPTION when you
configure.ac:167: put the 'win32-dll' option into LT_INIT's first parameter.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/general.m4:2434: AC_DIAGNOSE is expanded from...
aclocal.m4:8523: AC_LIBTOOL_WIN32_DLL is expanded from...
configure.ac:167: the top level
configure.ac:168: warning: The macro `AC_PROG_LIBTOOL' is obsolete.
configure.ac:168: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:121: AC_PROG_LIBTOOL is expanded from...
configure.ac:168: the top level
configure.ac:182: warning: The macro `AC_HEADER_STDC' is obsolete.
configure.ac:182: You should run autoupdate.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/headers.m4:704: AC_HEADER_STDC is expanded from...
configure.ac:182: the top level
configure.ac:213: warning: The macro `AC_TYPE_SIGNAL' is obsolete.
configure.ac:213: You should run autoupdate.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/types.m4:776: AC_TYPE_SIGNAL is expanded from...
configure.ac:213: the top level
configure.ac:235: warning: The macro `AC_CHECK_LIBM' is obsolete.
configure.ac:235: You should run autoupdate.
aclocal.m4:3879: AC_CHECK_LIBM is expanded from...
configure.ac:235: the top level
configure.ac:276: warning: The macro `AC_TRY_LINK' is obsolete.
configure.ac:276: You should run autoupdate.
../autoconf-2.71/lib/autoconf/general.m4:2920: AC_TRY_LINK is expanded from...
m4/universal.m4:14: PD_CHECK_UNIVERSAL is expanded from...
configure.ac:276: the top level
configure.ac:168: installing 'm4/config/compile'
configure.ac:9: installing 'm4/config/missing'
asio/Makefile.am: installing 'm4/config/depcomp'

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ autoupdate
configure.ac:182: warning: The preprocessor macro `STDC_HEADERS' is obsolete.
  Except in unusual embedded environments, you can safely include all
  ISO C90 headers unconditionally.
configure.ac:213: warning: your code may safely assume C89 semantics that RETSIGTYPE is void.
Remove this warning and the `AC_CACHE_CHECK' when you adjust the code.

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ ^C

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ ./configure
configure: loading site script /etc/config.site
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a race-free mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking build system type... x86_64-w64-mingw32
checking host system type... x86_64-w64-mingw32
configure: iPhone SDK only available for arm-apple-darwin hosts, skipping tests
configure: Android SDK only available for arm-linux hosts, skipping tests
checking for as... as
checking for dlltool... dlltool
checking for objdump... objdump
checking how to print strings... printf
checking whether make supports the include directive... yes (GNU style)
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.exe
checking for suffix of executables... .exe
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... none needed
checking whether gcc understands -c and -o together... yes
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /usr/bin/sed
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /usr/bin/grep
checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for fgrep... /usr/bin/grep -F
checking for ld used by gcc... C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe
checking if the linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) is GNU ld... yes
checking for BSD- or MS-compatible name lister (nm)... /mingw64/bin/nm -B
checking the name lister (/mingw64/bin/nm -B) interface... BSD nm
checking whether ln -s works... no, using cp -pR
checking the maximum length of command line arguments... 8192
checking how to convert x86_64-w64-mingw32 file names to x86_64-w64-mingw32 format... func_convert_file_msys_to_w32
checking how to convert x86_64-w64-mingw32 file names to toolchain format... func_convert_file_msys_to_w32
checking for C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe option to reload object files... -r
checking for objdump... (cached) objdump
checking how to recognize dependent libraries... file_magic ^x86 archive import|^x86 DLL
checking for dlltool... (cached) dlltool
checking how to associate runtime and link libraries... func_cygming_dll_for_implib
checking for ar... ar
checking for archiver @FILE support... @
checking for strip... strip
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking command to parse /mingw64/bin/nm -B output from gcc object... ok
checking for sysroot... no
checking for a working dd... /usr/bin/dd
checking how to truncate binary pipes... /usr/bin/dd bs=4096 count=1
checking for mt... no
checking if : is a manifest tool... no
checking for stdio.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking for vfork.h... no
checking for dlfcn.h... no
checking for objdir... .libs
checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions... no
checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC
checking if gcc PIC flag -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC works... yes
checking if gcc static flag -static works... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes
checking whether the gcc linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in... yes
checking dynamic linker characteristics... Win32 ld.exe
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
checking whether stripping libraries is possible... yes
checking if libtool supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build static libraries... yes
checking for gcc... (cached) gcc
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C... (cached) yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... (cached) yes
checking for gcc option to enable C11 features... (cached) none needed
checking whether gcc understands -c and -o together... (cached) yes
checking dependency style of gcc... (cached) gcc3
checking for g++... g++
checking whether the compiler supports GNU C++... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking for g++ option to enable C++11 features... none needed
checking dependency style of g++... gcc3
checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... g++ -E
checking for ld used by g++... C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe
checking if the linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) is GNU ld... yes
checking whether the g++ linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) supports shared libraries... yes
checking for g++ option to produce PIC... -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC
checking if g++ PIC flag -DDLL_EXPORT -DPIC works... yes
checking if g++ static flag -static works... yes
checking if g++ supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking if g++ supports -c -o file.o... (cached) yes
checking whether the g++ linker (C:/msys64/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe) supports shared libraries... yes
checking dynamic linker characteristics... Win32 ld.exe
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... (cached) yes
checking whether ln -s works... no, using cp -pR
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... (cached) /usr/bin/grep
checking for a sed that does not truncate output... (cached) /usr/bin/sed
checking for windres... windres
checking for egrep... (cached) /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for fcntl.h... yes
checking for limits.h... yes
checking for malloc.h... yes
checking for netdb.h... no
checking for netinet/in.h... no
checking for stddef.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... (cached) yes
checking for string.h... (cached) yes
checking for sys/ioctl.h... no
checking for sys/param.h... yes
checking for sys/socket.h... no
checking for sys/soundcard.h... no
checking for sys/time.h... yes
checking for sys/timeb.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... (cached) yes
checking for int16_t... yes
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checking for off_t... yes
checking for pid_t... yes
checking for size_t... yes
checking for working alloca.h... no
checking for alloca... yes
checking for error_at_line... no
checking for fork... no
checking for vfork... no
checking for GNU libc compatible malloc... (cached) yes
checking for GNU libc compatible realloc... (cached) yes
checking return type of signal handlers... void
checking for dup2... yes
checking for floor... yes
checking for getcwd... yes
checking for gethostbyname... no
checking for gettimeofday... yes
checking for memmove... yes
checking for memset... yes
checking for pow... yes
checking for regcomp... no
checking for select... no
checking for socket... no
checking for sqrt... yes
checking for strchr... yes
checking for strerror... yes
checking for strrchr... yes
checking for strstr... yes
checking for strtol... yes
checking for dlopen in -ldl... no
checking for cos in -lm... yes
checking for CoreAudio/CoreAudio.h... no
checking for pthread_create in -lpthread... yes
checking for msgfmt... yes
checking for sys/soundcard.h... (cached) no
checking for snd_pcm_info in -lasound... no
configure: Using included PortAudio
configure: Using included PortMidi
checking that generated files are newer than configure... done
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating asio/Makefile
config.status: creating doc/Makefile
config.status: creating font/Makefile
config.status: creating mac/Makefile
config.status: creating man/Makefile
config.status: creating msw/Makefile
config.status: creating portaudio/Makefile
config.status: creating portmidi/Makefile
config.status: creating tcl/Makefile
config.status: creating tcl/pd-gui
config.status: creating po/Makefile
config.status: creating src/Makefile
config.status: creating extra/Makefile
config.status: creating extra/bob~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/bonk~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/choice/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/fiddle~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/loop~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/lrshift~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/pd~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/pique/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/sigmund~/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating extra/stdout/GNUmakefile
config.status: creating pd.pc
config.status: executing depfiles commands
config.status: executing libtool commands
configure:

    pd 0.51.4 is now configured

    Platform:             MinGW
    Debug build:          no
    Universal build:      no
    Localizations:        yes
    Source directory:     .
    Installation prefix:  /mingw64

    Compiler:             gcc
    CPPFLAGS:
    CFLAGS:               -g -O2 -ffast-math -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -O3
    LDFLAGS:
    INCLUDES:
    LIBS:                 -lpthread

    External extension:   dll
    External CFLAGS:      -mms-bitfields
    External LDFLAGS:     -s -Wl,--enable-auto-import -no-undefined -lpd

    fftw:                 no
    wish(tcl/tk):         wish85.exe
    audio APIs:           PortAudio ASIO MMIO
    midi APIs:            PortMidi


bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ make
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && /bin/sh '/c/Useras/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4/m4/config/missing' aclocal-1.16 -I m4/generated -I m4
configure.ac:170: error: AC_REQUIRE(): cannot be used outside of an AC_DEFUN'd macro
configure.ac:170: the top level
autom4te: error: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal-1.16: error: autom4te failed with exit status: 1
make: *** [Makefile:451: aclocal.m4] Error 1

bhage@LAPTOP-F1TU0LRH MINGW64 /c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4
$ make app
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && /bin/sh '/c/Users/bhage/Downloads/pd-0.51-4/m4/config/missing' aclocal-1.16 -I m4/generated -I m4
configure.ac:170: error: AC_REQUIRE(): cannot be used outside of an AC_DEFUN'd macro
configure.ac:170: the top level
autom4te: error: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 1
aclocal-1.16: error: autom4te failed with exit status: 1
make: *** [Makefile:451: aclocal.m4] Error 1

@oid said:

I am referring to it being made up from multiple objects instead of just one, analogy between transistors and integrated circuits.

Ok well, I was refering to the inherent phase shift that any digital filter has because of the discrete time and delay. No biggie.

Probably not control vs signal domain since they both have [mtof] on the cutoff so should be set to the exact same frequency. I am not talking about cancellation during the morph, as I said some transitions don't work, a resonance morph from 24db hp to 12db lp works but 24db hp to 18db lp results in the resonance results in the wrong phase after the morph, but a morph from 12db lp to 18db lp works just fine (don't recall if those actual transitions are the troublesome ones, just a random example). I suspect an error that can only be seen on the text level, order of operations (don't see anywhere this could be the issue) or an actual error which can not be seen in the patcher like the duplicate patch cable bug. I am fairly certain this just recently cropped up and the non-[lop~] filters did work but that might have just been an illusion caused by the mysterious 10 sample delay which had cropped up some how, I have no idea, hence starting over from scratch come weekend.

For resonance to work, there has to be a full 360 degree shift of the cut-off frequency while the other frequencies get cancelled/phased out. This works when you have 4 1 pole filters doing 45 degrees shift on the cutoff frequency each and then do negative (180 degree shift) feedback. But when you start mixing the different poles for the feedback you get all sorts of different phase distortions that wont create the magic self oscillation we love so much. Maybe try using the [filter-graph] abstractions from H10.measurement.pd to measure phase distortion on your resonance pole-mix and see what is going on.

As an aside, know of any suitable externals which is essentially [lop~] with signal rate? I looked some but only found more complex filters, would be nice to have that CPU savings which [lop~] provides but keep signal rate inputs. Or is the CPU difference primarily the signal rate cutoff? Seems too great to be just that.

I just ran a test on [rpole~] vs [lop~] (seppareately!)

Setting [rpole~] up like here, it works 'exactly* like [lop~]. They both spike at 30 CPU but stay at 20 most of the time. I think [rpole~] is as cheap as it gets with signal rate cut-off control. Of course, small differences add up when you have several instances.

After posting about UI woes (and subsequently withdrawing that post), I started looking into Purr Data.

It appears to be quite difficult to install in Ubuntu 18.04.

At https://github.com/agraef/purr-data/releases, there is no .deb for Ubuntu 18 (only for 14 and 16). pd-l2ork-2.9.0-20190416-rev.2b3f27c-x86_64.deb fails to install:

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of pd-l2ork:
 pd-l2ork depends on libgsl2; however:
  Package libgsl2 is not installed.

Ubuntu 18 does not have libgsl2. It has libgsl23 -- which is installed on my system, but does not satisfy the dependency.

https://launchpad.net/~dr-graef/+archive/ubuntu/pd-l2ork.bionic is supposedly a PPA for Ubuntu 18.04. After adding it:

$ sudo apt-get install purr-data
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 pd-l2ork : Depends: libgsl2 but it is not installable
            Recommends: ladspa-foo-plugins but it is not going to be installed
            Recommends: slv2-jack but it is not installable
 purr-data : Depends: libavifile-0.7c2 but it is not going to be installed
             Depends: libmpeg3-2 (>= 1.8.dfsg) but it is not going to be installed
             Recommends: ladspa-foo-plugins but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

I haven't looked into the "not going to be installed" packages, but I already know what "not installable" means -- at least, libgsl2 doesn't exist for my Ubuntu version -- https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=libgsl2 shows "Package libgsl2 -- xenial (16.04LTS)" only.

Neither agraef nor jonwwilkes' Purr Data github repositories allow issue reports (only pull requests). So I can't ask the distributors.

I guess I could try to build it myself...? But, if the currently available release packages are not really compatible with with current Ubuntu LTS, that's not a very good situation.

hjh

Here is the patch that I have been working on for the past few months. OverBlast is a sampler sequencer that will be used as the UI for a DIY midi workstation with a Raspberry pi. And now with a lot of help from people in this forum I have been able to play midi sequences from midi hardware which was a huge step in its development process. Boy let me tell you learning puredata has been an experience that taught me to learn from the headaches and appreciate the highs. lol

In its current state I have been At this point there are a few known bugs. listed below.

Known Bugs

• Sample Editor - Truncate btn dose not work correctly. saves whatever is in soundfiler buffer should clip start and end positions.
• Sample Editor - Loop playback toggle dose not do anything at the moment. sample will automaticly loop.
• Sample Editor - When start and end positions are adjusted the patch will crash the next time the sample is played or looped
• Sample Editor - Loop playback toggle dose not do anything at the moment. sample will automaticly loop.
• Sample Editor - Time stretch dose not to any thing. pitch slider will only changes the pitch. Time stretch should take in account the pitch and bmp to make it a true time strecth.
• Sample Editor - Loop playback toggle dose not do anything at the moment. sample will automaticly loop.
• Sample Editor - Export as Wave dose not do anything at the moment.
• Sequencer dose not work.. WIP contains only ui design
• Song builder does not work. WIP contains only ui design

With that said if you wish to play around with this patch it will more then likely crash while using the sample editor if the start and end positions are adjusted as there is still work to be done with it. The only thing that works in the sample editor is the sample recorder. You are able to record sample and import them to the sample editor to be edited but you cant actually make edits yet.

So why release the patch in this state? Well i could use some feedback and peoples thoughts on the workflow. And simply if there is anyone out there that is interesting in lending a hand in its development. What can you do with it?

You can load samples to the mixer and play sequences from your midi hardware. Record samples from a mic to the sample editor and play them (Dont adjust the start and end positions) it may crash.

Again the song builder and sequencer do not work they are simply ui designs. Be warned if you are going to dive int he sample editor is very messy as it was when I was doing the majority of my exploration/noobing into puredata. I have been slowly cleaning it up.

I should mention you can learn midi notes then save them as a preset the pad controller is fully functional.

Sadly I cant make a video my laptop locks up when I try to use obs or xsplit.

The main patch is OverBlast.pd inside of the zip

OverBlast-SuperAlpha.zip

I see that my version of Linux Mint (17.1 "Rebecca") is very, very old. Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14. That's why the old Pd-extended package still worked.

Ubuntu versions from 16 on do not have the old library version called libgsl0ldbl (link). So in the future Pd-extended will not work in Linux.

Then there is Purrdata (a fork of Pd-l2Ork which is a fork of Pd-extended). It's executable is, strangely enough, still called Pd-l2Ork. That one still loads this Moog patch. However, the "on screen" keyboard does not work, neither can you load the presets.

I give up on Puredata. Might give running the Pd-extended Windows version in Wine a go (edit: doesn't work. needs a .bat file that doesn't work). But even that ends someday. Shame that all the forks break some sort of backwards compatibility.

Apologies for cross-postings

Fifth Annual Web Audio Conference - 2nd Call for Submissions

https://www.ntnu.edu/wac2019

The fifth Web Audio Conference (WAC) will be held 4-6 December, 2019 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. WAC is an international conference dedicated to web audio technologies and applications. The conference addresses academic research, artistic research, development, design, evaluation and standards concerned with emerging audio-related web technologies such as Web Audio API, Web RTC, WebSockets and Javascript. The conference welcomes web developers, music technologists, computer musicians, application designers, industry engineers, R&D scientists, academic researchers, artists, students and people interested in the fields of web development, music technology, computer music, audio applications and web standards. The previous Web Audio Conferences were held in 2015 at IRCAM and Mozilla in Paris, in 2016 at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, in 2017 at the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London in London, and in 2018 at TU Berlin in Berlin.

The internet has become much more than a simple storage and delivery network for audio files, as modern web browsers on desktop and mobile devices bring new user experiences and interaction opportunities. New and emerging web technologies and standards now allow applications to create and manipulate sound in real-time at near-native speeds, enabling the creation of a new generation of web-based applications that mimic the capabilities of desktop software while leveraging unique opportunities afforded by the web in areas such as social collaboration, user experience, cloud computing, and portability. The Web Audio Conference focuses on innovative work by artists, researchers, students, and engineers in industry and academia, highlighting new standards, tools, APIs, and practices as well as innovative web audio applications for musical performance, education, research, collaboration, and production, with an emphasis on bringing more diversity into audio.

Keynote Speakers

We are pleased to announce our two keynote speakers: Rebekah Wilson (independent researcher, technologist, composer, co-founder and technology director for Chicago’s Source Elements) and Norbert Schnell (professor of Music Design at the Digital Media Faculty at the Furtwangen University).
More info available at: https://www.ntnu.edu/wac2019/keynotes

Theme and Topics

The theme for the fifth edition of the Web Audio Conference is Diversity in Web Audio. We particularly encourage submissions focusing on inclusive computing, cultural computing, postcolonial computing, and collaborative and participatory interfaces across the web in the context of generation, production, distribution, consumption and delivery of audio material that especially promote diversity and inclusion.

Further areas of interest include:

• Web Audio API, Web MIDI, Web RTC and other existing or emerging web standards for audio and music.
• Development tools, practices, and strategies of web audio applications.
• Innovative audio-based web applications.
• Web-based music composition, production, delivery, and experience.
• Client-side audio engines and audio processing/rendering (real-time or non real-time).
• Cloud/HPC for music production and live performances.
• Audio data and metadata formats and network delivery.
• Server-side audio processing and client access.
• Frameworks for audio synthesis, processing, and transformation.
• Web-based audio visualization and/or sonification.
• Multimedia integration.
• Web-based live coding and collaborative environments for audio and music generation.
• Web standards and use of standards within audio-based web projects.
• Hardware and tangible interfaces and human-computer interaction in web applications.
• Codecs and standards for remote audio transmission.
• Any other innovative work related to web audio that does not fall into the above categories.

Submission Tracks

We welcome submissions in the following tracks: papers, talks, posters, demos, performances, and artworks. All submissions will be single-blind peer reviewed. The conference proceedings, which will include both papers (for papers and posters) and extended abstracts (for talks, demos, performances, and artworks), will be published open-access online with Creative Commons attribution, and with an ISSN number. A selection of the best papers, as determined by a specialized jury, will be offered the opportunity to publish an extended version at the Journal of Audio Engineering Society.

Papers: Submit a 4-6 page paper to be given as an oral presentation.

Talks: Submit a 1-2 page extended abstract to be given as an oral presentation.

Posters: Submit a 2-4 page paper to be presented at a poster session.

Demos: Submit a work to be presented at a hands-on demo session. Demo submissions should consist of a 1-2 page extended abstract including diagrams or images, and a complete list of technical requirements (including anything expected to be provided by the conference organizers).

Performances: Submit a performance making creative use of web-based audio applications. Performances can include elements such as audience device participation and collaboration, web-based interfaces, Web MIDI, WebSockets, and/or other imaginative approaches to web technology. Submissions must include a title, a 1-2 page description of the performance, links to audio/video/image documentation of the work, a complete list of technical requirements (including anything expected to be provided by conference organizers), and names and one-paragraph biographies of all performers.

Artworks: Submit a sonic web artwork or interactive application which makes significant use of web audio standards such as Web Audio API or Web MIDI in conjunction with other technologies such as HTML5 graphics, WebGL, and Virtual Reality frameworks. Works must be suitable for presentation on a computer kiosk with headphones. They will be featured at the conference venue throughout the conference and on the conference web site. Submissions must include a title, 1-2 page description of the work, a link to access the work, and names and one-paragraph biographies of the authors.

Tutorials: If you are interested in running a tutorial session at the conference, please contact the organizers directly.

Important Dates

March 26, 2019: Open call for submissions starts.

June 16, 2019: Submissions deadline.

September 2, 2019: Notification of acceptances and rejections.

September 15, 2019: Early-bird registration deadline.

October 6, 2019: Camera ready submission and presenter registration deadline.

December 4-6, 2019: The conference.

At least one author of each accepted submission must register for and attend the conference in order to present their work. A limited number of diversity tickets will be available.

Templates and Submission System

Templates and information about the submission system are available on the official conference website: https://www.ntnu.edu/wac2019

Best wishes,
The WAC 2019 Committee

@Cuinjune the conway implementation does work now (with and without borders). to achieve that i changed the 1-dimensional table into a 2-dimensional table. because of that i could not figure out yet how to make "shift" work again (except "shift up", which already works), but i will find a solution. the second issue is (again) saving the grid, because pd seems to crash when i return a 2-dimensional table (even without setting the pd [array]).
here is a minimal example of my issue: return_2dim_table.pd
i also wonder if it makes more sense to save a 2-dimensional lua table into a [text] object (which seems kind of an equivalent) or an [array] object. if i save into [array] i have to flatten the lua table before saving and "de"flatten before i load it back into the lua table. or get and set the array/table line by line. basically my main question is: what is the best way to save and recall a 2-dimensional lua table in pure data? everything else does work (and i think better than before).
i also put the matrix transformation functions (shift, invert and so on...) into single ofelia define objects (again), because i think it is better for keeping track of the code.
Ofelia2_GridXMatrix.pd
another issue that i found is that sending a bang into ofelia.bang does not work sometimes while a directly connected bang does work (the "Invert" bang in ofelia2_gridxmatrix.pd for example). which is not really a problem because there are easy workarounds, just wanted to mention it.
i really appreciate all the possibilities of the ofelia library, and i think i just scratched the surface....
edit: everything besides saving works again.

Seem like
[del 1000]

does not always work. sometimes it works sometimes it don't when it does not work I get a instant bang. when it does work I get a 1 second delay before the bang. When it does not work I have to delete the object and recreate it. Then it works but as soon as I add another object or restart pure data it stop working.