Hey everybody,

I developed a vanilla PD patch, which I would like to share. Which things should I pay attention to and is there a general backwards compatibility, so that I also can install the newest version of PD in 5 Years for example, and my patch will still work?

And how it is about cross platform compatibility? I only checked it with windows, because I am only a Windows user.

Thank you very much!

@Bangflip Pure Data is quite good at backwards comparability and when they introduce a change which will break old patches (other than very niche uses) they offer a comparability mode so pd can run using the older standard. You can make a note in the patch/readme saying which version of pd you developed the patch for, this will give the user a clue if it does not work for them 5 years from now. If you want to be thorough you can read through the PRs and issues on pd's git to see if you are doing anything which could become broken down the line, often times the discussion in the PRs/issues shows alternate ways of accomplishing the same task which will not be broken by the change.

Cross platform is good, only catch is a few midi objects which only linux has.

Sounds nice, thank you for your answer!

@Bangflip As @oid states backward compatibility can be set in Pd by sending Pd a message.
You can [loadbang] a message as below within your patch. The downside is that it will persist until Pd is re-started or you send another message.
Only for Vanilla...... if you are using externals the end user will still have to search and install them unless you zip them up into a folder with your patch and include a [declare] object so that they are found.
David.

@whale-av said:

You can [loadbang] a message as below within your patch. The downside is that it will persist until Pd is re-started or you send another message.

I will do that with the compatibility mode. This is very useful, I guess. But I have another question in regard to the loadbang. Is there an easy way to setup, that the compatibility bang will be played first? I have a big patch with a looot of loadbangs and searching them will take some time.

Ahh, is it maybe possible if I use a text editor and just place the loadbang plus your code in the first line? Is it than like that, that the first line will be initialised first?

I just created the message:
[;
pd compatibility 0.52.2(

I get the message: „bad arguments for message“

It only works, if I put in 0.52. Is the newest 0.52 version that one, pd will use in future versions if I activate the compatibility mode?

@Bangflip Setting the comparability with a [loadbang] is not a good idea, as @whale-av mentioned this sets pd itself to that comparability, not just your single patch. Opening your patch will break any other open patches if they use those objects which were added in after 52. Yes on the text editor stuff and this is sometimes a requirement to find issues with a patch since in the patcher we can not see the order of things like [loadbangs]. Compatibility flags probably cover the entire major version, everything made on 52 from 52.1 to 52.9384 will run with [pd compatibility 0.52(, just a guess there but likely safe.

@oid

Ah, okay, now I understand. But I have an idea then. I will give the user on the GUI the option with a button to turn the mode on, if there are problems. So he can try this mode at least.

@whale-av said:

Where can I find a list of all messages like this? PD shutdown or save is then also possible, isn‘t it?

@Bangflip Most are here (the file should be in your Pd/doc folder)......... messages to Pd.zip
There are others undocumented..... or at least not included in that help patch (like "compatibility").
For putting objects into a patch by dynamic patching the full documentation is here........ https://puredata.info/docs/developer/PdFileFormat
David.

Thx, I did this now:

With this button one can activate or deactivate the compatibility mode. After one press it, this function saves the current patch and than closes it. After start, it checks, if the toggle is on or off and then bangs the compatibility message, if the toggle is on.

Could this work?

Hmm, I am trying command line options, which I found here, but they don't work?
https://puredata.info/docs/faq/commandline

What am I doing wrong?

And I don't understand this sentence on the page:
"Use pd -help to find out."

What is pd -help? How can I find it?

@Bangflip They can be a added to a shortcut to Pd.exe in windows and there is probably a way in other Os's.
The easy way within Pd is to add them in the Preferences, Startup page...... like the -noautopatch in the screenshot below.
David.

Ahh, okay, but I am not totally understand it.

This Message:
you mentioned above will work without adding it in the Preferences?

@Bangflip Yes, Pd will accept some messages...... the most common one used is
[;
pd dsp 1( to turn on audio.
But command line switches (sometimes called startup flags) have to be set as the program starts.
I forgot to say that you have to restart Pd after setting a switch in the preferences.
They are sort of "old school" from the days of the dos prompt, and before programs had preference panes.
I have a shortcut on my desktop for starting Pd 0.48 with Gem.
The "target" for the shortcut is......

"C:\Users\David\Desktop\Pd Vanilla\pd-0.48-1.msw\pd\bin\pd.exe" -lib C:\Users\David\Desktop\dot\0.94-test3/Gem -font-size 10 -font-face "Consolas"

It loads Pd but sets the Gem library with its path, and sets the font for Pd through the command line switches -font-face and -font-size
David.

@whale-av
Ok, thank you very much! Some things are hard for me to understand as I am learning Pure Data and not come from the programming world.