Hello everybody!

I need some clarifications concerning the declare obj.
I'm working with Pd-Vanilla 0.46-4 (64bit) running on OSx 10.9.5 on a new project in which I'll use some objects from the iemlib, maxlib, iemmatrix ecc.... in order to share this patch in the future, I would like to put these libs inside the project folder and recall them using the declare obj.

So what is the difference between declare -path, declare -lib etc? the help file is not clear for me (maybe I didn't really understand what a library is...).
When should I use -path and when -lib?
Which flag relates to the extra folder (inside Pd.app)? and which one to the usr/Library/Pd (on Mac)?

thank you very very much for everyone's patience

Not sure if I get it right too, but I use -path for abstractions and -lib for external libraries. Also, I mainly use -lib when I want to include something that's in /Library/Pd and -path when it's something in /Users/myself/
Hope it helps...

Hi all,

I think that [declare -path <something>] simply adds a folder to the path (be that folder containing whatever it may), but [declare -lib <something>] will load a specific library contained in that folder. The thing is, as far as I understand, some libraries are not automatically loaded by just being in the path. Examples for this (from the top of my head) are mrpeach and hoa libraries, which can be loaded either by adding a startup flag to pd such as -lib mrpeach or by using the [import mrpeach] object. So in that sense, if you would put mrpeach library inside your patch folder, you could load it also via [declare -lib mrpeach].

I hope this makes sense, as I am also not sure I get this right either.

Take care,
Gilberto

Hi everyone, thank you for the answers

@alexandros said:

Not sure if I get it right too, but I use -path for abstractions and -lib for external libraries

Yes and that exactly what confuses me. Aren't external libraries collections of abstractions?

Getting more in detail, I'm mostly having problem with iemabs, which now it's in Applications/Pd/Contents/Resources/extra folder (path that I've also declared in the path PD preferences), where I also have all the libraries (iemlib, zexy ecc..) which are perfectly working just using [declare -lib]. .
Should I really move the iemabs folder to the project folder everytime I use it?

Yes and that exactly what confuses me. Aren't external libraries collections of abstractions?

No, they aren't. Abstractions are created using other basic Pd objects, and they can be opened as a patch (they have the file extension .pd and are platform independent). An external is a pre compiled object which you can't open as a patch in Pd (they have the file extension such as .pd_linux and .pd_darwin and are platform dependent).

ok now it's all clear.

So how would you suggest me to use the iemabs or any other abstraction?
Should I copy what I need into the each project folder or is there any shortcut?

thank very very much

@dgeorge What is iemabs? Is it an object or a library? I can't find a single file or folder with this name in my extra directory.

@gsagostinho

it's a library (or better, after this topic, a collection of externals/abstractions),
it's part of the iemlib I downloaded it from here:

https://gitorious.org/pdlib/elthariel-libpd/source/96a54263e650b3469c03a9ec6e9a589396cebb77:pure-data/externals/iemlib/iemabs

Ok, so I downloaded that library and here are some things:

• that is a collection of abstractions, NOT of externals. Thus you don't need to use any kind of [import] for using it
• if you would download a collection of abstractions, you can call them on Pd by creating an object with their full path, such as [/home/gilberto/Pd/abstraction_name], but more convenient would be to add the collection's folder (in my example, /home/gilberto/Pd/) to the path of Pd via the menu Edit, Preferences, Path, New...
• and just a comment for pd-extended users: iemabs is already included in pd-extended as part of iemlib. All of its abstractions are contained in the iemlib's folder

Hope this helps,
Gilberto