Hello, all.
I'm new to PD but have been using Max/MSP for a while now.
I wanted to try my hand at visuals, but don't have the money for Jitter.
For the life of me, I can't get Gem objects to work in PD.
I'm on a Macbook Pro running 10.5.2.
I've tried both the latest PD-extended I could find (20080316) and the vanilla version of PD with Gem CVS 0.91.
The funny thing is, I can get the Gem library to load fine.
I get the whole welcome message from Gem in the PD window when I start the program.
I can create Gem objects just fine. For instance, pix_film and gemhead.
All I'm trying to do, for now, is play a quicktime movie.
However, every time I send pix_film the 'open openpanel' message, I get this:

error: [pix_filmDarwin]: GEM: pix_movie: Unable to find file:

I have added every search path I can think of.
Strangely enough, when I try to pull up the help file from the pix_film object, it tells me it can't find it.
However, if I manually load the pix_film help file from PD's help browser, it works perfectly fine.
Any ideas?
Thanks very much!

the latest release of pd probably doesn't have all the paths set correctly. if you don't want to manually do all that, then get the newest stable release of pd-extended here:

http://at.or.at/hans/pd/installers-0.39.3-extended-rc5.html

for your openpanel message, it should look something like this:

[bang(
|
[openpanel]
|
[open $1(
|
[pix_film]

or else,

[open /my/complete/path/movie.mov(
|
[pix_film]

if you know the exact location of the movie you want to play.

Ach. Silly me.
I was creating openpanel as a message, not an object.
Still, I can't get the help files to open.
I get this meassage:

sorry, couldn't find help patch for "Gem/pix_filmDarwin.pd"

Even though the help file for pix_film is in /Applications/PureData/Gem/help, which I entered as one of my search paths.
Could it have something to do with the fact that the help file for pix_film is just called 'pix_film.pd'?
That's the way it came when I downloaded Gem.
Thanks again.

i just had a look and i can't find it either (pix_film help)

i think pd has a standard, where help files are usually named patchname-help.pd

but whoever made the help patches for certain gem objects didn't follow that protocol.

I see.
Strangely enough, it wouldn't respond to name changes, either (pix_filmDarwin.pd).
At least now I know the stuff works. I made a video mixer last night. As of yesterday morning, I didn't even know how to load the library, so it's progress!
Thank for your help.
If anyone else has any ideas about the help files, please chime in.

Just a guess - the path to Gem help patches should not be in the -path setting, but the -helppath setting. No clue if this is really your problem...