23 Jan
2003
23 Jan
'03
7:29 a.m.
On Thu, Jan 23, 2003 at 12:01:55 +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote:
OK, here I'm probably just showing my lack of skill with pd and co.
I'd agree
that shadows behind the objects are useless. Coloured patch
cords could help me, depending on what the colouring rules are, but I
still think the biggest thing done to make it easier to use would be
(optional) chip style routing. I find the straight lines very hard to
parse.
I absoluteley agree: The cords should be able to be aligned, like in
Max/MSP. But I use a lot of send/receive pairs without real cords in my
patches, and I also tend to hide a lot of things in subpatches (or
abstractions) so actually there is only a small handful of lines visible
in the end. I talked to Robert Henke of Ableton about the
philosophy behind their
innovative interface, and one of the most interesting concepts was, that
everything *must* fit into one window. Overlapping or popup-windows are
I would definatly agree with that.
Even now Pd is capable of imitating such very focused
interfaces, because
everything can be hidden, so that only the really important things are
visible. jMax of course can do this as well, and the choice between jMax
and Pd is more a matter of taste then a technical one. jMax has more
colours, nicer fonts and even breakable lines, I think.
Don't they have UI modules that can be used as well? I think I've seen
screenshots that looked quite clean. I've not used jMax and pd to the
extent that I notice any difference between them, at the moment I'm using
pd occasionally because thats what comes with Planet :)
Taking a week off work to learn jMax and pd is on my TODO list.
- Steve