Dear PD community
I am happy to announce the beta release of Context, a powerful new sequencer for PD. Context is a modular sequencer that re-imagines musical compositions as a networks. It combines traditional step sequencing and timeline playback with non-linear and algorithmic paradigms, all in a small but advanced GUI.

Unlike most other sequencing software, Context is not an environment. It is a single abstraction which may be replicated and interconnected to create an environment in the form of a network. There are literally endless possibilities in creating Context networks, and the user has a great deal of control over how their composition will function.

From a technical perspective, Context features a lot of things that you don't often see in PD, such as click + drag canvas resizing, dynamic menus, embeddable timelines, and fully automatic state saving. It also boasts its own language, parsed entirely within PD.

Context is work in progress--there are still lots of bugs in the software and lots of holes in the documentation. However, I have gotten it to a place where I feel it is coherent enough for others to use it, and where it would benefit from wider feedback. I am especially looking for people who can help me with proof reading and bug tracking. Please let me know if you want to join the team! Even if you can't commit to much, pointing out typos or bits of the documentation that are confusing will be very helpful to me.

Some notes on the documentation: I have been putting 90% of my efforts recently into writing the manual, and only 9% into writing the .pd help files (the remaining 1% being sleep). The help files are pretty, but the information in them is not very useful. This will be corrected as soon as I have more time and better perspective. In the mean time, please don't be put off by the confusing help files, and treat the manual as the main resource.

Context is available now at https://github.com/LGoodacre/context-sequencer.

A few other links:

• The debut performance of Context at PDCon16~:

• An explanation of this performance: http://newblankets.org/liam_context/context-patch.webm

• A small demo video:

• My paper from PDCon16~: https://contextsequencer.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/goodacre-context.pdf

Finally, I should say that this project has been my blood sweat and tears for the past 18 months, and it would mean a great deal to me to see other people using it. Please share your patches with me! And also share your questions--I will always be happy to respond.

Context only works on PD Vanilla 0.47, and it needs the following externals:

zexy
cyclone
moocow
flatgui
list-abs
iemguts (v 0.2.1 or later)

Hopefully one day it will work on L2Ork and Purr Data, but not yet.

I would like to thank the PD community for their support and inspiration, in particular Joe Deken and the organizers of PDCon16.

I finally made a proper demo video for Context! Please share.

Context is now developed enough for people to approach it. There are a lot of bug fixes since I last posted, and the documentation is thorough. You can download it at:

https://github.com/LGoodacre/context-sequencer

Wowww, I will try it today!!! congratulations for the great work!!!

Make sure you get the latest version (not the one mentioned in this post).

See this post: https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/11431/context-4-0-now-on-deken

It's now very easy to install using the Deken repository.

Hi! Im having problems because Ive installed pd 32 bits for windows, and context requires the 64 bits version right? Im on windows 10 and compiled the source without errors but when I try to launch pd it doesn't works...

@capitan-mission I thought that the windows externals I provided were for 32 bit, but maybe I made a mistake with that? If you can you describe where you've gotten to and exactly what has gone wrong, I'm sure we'll be able to get it working.

Thanks for sharing your sequencer! I look forward to getting familiar with it. One question so far: How do I get samples that have been loaded in content objects to fit the entire overlay area? The manual suggests using the 'fit' command, but when I send it to the content command message inlet, I get 'command not recognized: fit' in the Pd console. I also tried using a mover object and was able to resize one content object after quite a bit of fussing, but I haven't been able to repeat the feat with others.

Thanks,
p

@palaver
I've been working on the "fit" command recently, and it should be working a lot better on the latest version of Context, which you can download here. There is also a new option at the bottom of the Content properties menu, "fit to overlay", which saves you having to write the command. However, it doesn't seem to be working yet as a creation argument, ie. [content fit] should jump to the right position and size, but doesn't. Hopefully I'll fix this soon.

[mover] is frustrating to begin with, but it works well when you get used to it. The trick is to realize that the selectable area is just outside the borders of the box, by about 5 pixels. If the [content] object is up against the wall of the Overlay, you still need to move the mouse in position just past the border. Of course, all this needs to be done when the Shift key is held down.

Dragging and dropping will probably never work as well in Context as on "real" software, but perhaps I can still make it better. Two things that I've been wondering:

1. Should the selectable area be moved to inside the [content] object border? Would this make it more intuitive to use?
2. It would be nice if the [mover] changed colour to indicate that it is in the right position to move the embedded object. I'm going to take a look at this, though I suspect that it won't be easy.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Oh snap, I built #2 years ago, it was just broken! It's fixed now, and the git is up to date. @palaver, please have a go and tell me what you think.

The update did the trick. I can now use the mover more predictably, except of course it is difficult to know when you've reached the exact size to fit. More importantly, 'fit' gets the size right. I find that I have to move the content up four ticks every time to get the whole object with the GOP window though, but that's a small price to pay for an otherwise perfect fit. Also, good move on the 'normal speed' button in the content properties. Not sure if that's new or not, but I was searching for a way to get the speed correct without too much effort when setting up.

Thanks again for sharing your work. I'm doing some weird out-of-sync sample playback experimentation, and Context is giving me a lot of flexibility.

I'm glad it's useful to you! Please let me know if you have any other problems or suggestions--I'm always trying to make it better. (There's a Facebook group for this kind of feedback, if you're interested).

One other trick with [mover]--if you hold Shift and double-click, on the object, then you will shift it by block sizes. This is often easier if you're just trying to get it to fit the Overlay box.