Yesterday, I switched from PD-Extended to the latest version of vanilla. After installing a few externals via Deken, I tried creating some of their objects, and every time just got a "could not create external" error. I've tried installing them, reinstalling PD on my C: Drive, and even using new paths instead if the regular "extra" folder, but nothing seems to let me create any external objects.

Is there anyone who has any idea what I might be missing here? This has been extremely frustrating since up until now I've relied a lot on things like Cyclone and IEMlib, and I'd really rather not work without them.

My UI question: I noticed in the brief period I was using Vanilla that the UI has been (in my personal opinion) a significant downgrade from that of PD-Extended. Is there any info on what plugins I'd need to restore the look that I'm used to? And how would I install them?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

I don't know about the UI question (and I agree!), but regarding externals: have you been using the form [library_name/external]... like:

[ekext/cup]
or
[cyclone/bondo]

I haven't had any problems with deken & this method... deken installs to the place PD wants them automatically. I'm on Linux, so maybe it's different on Windows.

@mrpersonalspace you can also test drive Purr Data:

http://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/10301/purr-data-alpha6

It's still in alpha (alpha6 is the last one before the beta release), but most stuff (including external libraries) should work out of the box.