Hi,

I want to be able to add commands to a list and step forward through it, similar to a "channel" in a tracker style sequencer.

I figure a good way to do it is to just use [text].

Or? Could there be a better solution? Or even abstraction. The ELSE library?

...

Image for reference:

All good

you might end up with list columns. it isnt one list really. its multiple lists at the same time. then you maybe use numbers and read numbers from the list and they trigger commands.

@cfry Don't think you will find an external or abstraction which will be easier/better for this than [text] unless someone made exactly what you were looking for and even then it will only be easier until you decide to change things and start banging your head against the limitations of the external or abstraction. This is a pretty simple thing to throw together using [text] and [text get] or [text sequence] depending on your needs, a simple looping [text get] sequencer is not complex and easy to expand to a full tracker like interface even.

[text sequence] is even simpler but has some limitations, it is great when your needs align with it but almost everytime I use it my needs grow beyond its limitations and I switch to [text get]. [text get] also tends to result in neater, easier to read patches since you don't have all those messages going to one inlet.

Edit: Must not have been quite awake when I patched that moses in, bet I thought I was being clever.

Yes thanks, it seems like [text] is optimal for this purpose.

Once I understood that I can use [list split] to separate messages it became smooth. That both comma an semicolon made it a new message posed some problems.

@cfry Dealing with hex is almost always irritating in pd, I generally try and make the hex UI only and keep it as floats under the hood, but that is not always practical. The comma behavior is fairly useful, just need to format your data to exploit it and it makes sense when you think about it since if it did not work that way the object the [text get] is connected to would see a line like 1, 2, 3, 4; as four separate messages and not the single message 1, 2, 3, 4, it would be the same as [1, 2, 3, 4( into a [list] which generally will not give the desired result . That one caused me some grief at first until I learned to use it to my advantage.

@cfry said:

The ELSE library?

Not really a tracker list... but check [else/score] and [else/score2]

@oid I will not use Hex, for convenience, and my own sanity. Its just the mode of operation that I am after.

But [text get] actually treats comma and semicolon the same way, ie end of message. The right output gives a number that indicates if the message was ended with a comma or semicolon. Since I want to keep the messages and rows in the text "synced", use the line as an index for the messages, this behavior becomes a problem. So either invent some custom separator or use [line split]. I always felt using [line split] a bit awkward but this seem to be the proper solution.

@cfry Might help...... no-comma.zip
Will remove commas from e.g.
A, 3;
B, 6;
etc.
.... but depends on the lines being always of 2 elements.
[text define] seems to display the data very differently in 0.55 and 0.50.... but results are the same...
David.

@cfry I was thinking you were using [list split] in place of [unpack] to deal with hex being made up of both floats like 11 and symbols like a1. I can't quite figure out what you are doing with the [list split],. I suspect you just need to develop a more complex counter and maybe tweak how your data is stored and you will be able to make things cleaner. Providing some more information might help in offering alternatives, the format of your data and how you need to access it, perhaps a simple mockup of your patch.

If you look at line 9/message 9 there are two commands. If I would to separate them by comma it would be regarded as two messages and would be output as message 9 (valAdd 1)and then 10 (goto 7).

I want to be able to add an arbitrary amount of commands per message.

Using line like this will only allow me to have one or two messages but it will at least send both commands in the same message (message index 9)

What is awkward is that each command must have the same format here (variable and value).

I imagine I can have an abstraction that I just update with new commands that I create and keep it separate from the texts ("fx1" here).

@cfry You can chain [list split 2]'s.... middle outlet of each to the inlet of the next + left outlets in parallel ..... so as to have longer name/value lists on each line.

And also If you use [route symbol] with just the one argument ( multiple [route symbol] objects in parallel ) it can be updated through the right inlet if necessary.
David.

@whale-av yes that is interesting. But atm I do not see the use case for this. It seems more simple to just edit the route object(s) and resave the abs. And make sure all connections are still going to the right place.

@cfry To get around each command needing the same format the easiest is just to make them all the same, have a null argument like bang.

Now we can just skip the commas and have as many commands per line as you want. If you want to run the command "stop" you just make the message "stop bang" and it sends a bang to [r stop]. Would probably want to add a [list prepend $1] between the [list split] and the message and make the message [; $1$2 $3( so you can pass the parent patch's $0 and prepend it to the symbol but that might not be needed for your use?

If you want commands with more than one argument things get more difficult since you don't want to always have to type in all those null characters or symbols, but it is not that difficult to create a simple editor which does it for you, especially now that we got [list box), I have one somewhere from when I made a tracker like thing years ago, I will see if I can find it later if you want to check it out.

If you really want commands with an arbitrary number of arguments and no nulls, use commas and exploit the right outlet of [text get]. This does complicate things regarding line number vs message number but making that [sel 1] into a [sel 0 1] and using the 0 outlet to bang a second counter for the line number might be enough?

@oid wow that is beautiful. And thanks for showing using sends. Got rid of some messy cabling.

It would be nice to see that tracker thing, if you find it please let me know.

My purpose is not build a tracker but just to have this little module that I can throw in wherever I want this type of modulation function. So its basically there already.

--

I plan to add a loop function with nn iterations as well. Thinking about it now, that may be a bit tricky because I would need a command with two values (target line, iteration).

Do you think it would make sense to use a format like this:

loop 10 = forever loop between this line and line 10
loop 10x4 = loop 4 times between this line and line 10.

(10x4 will be a symbol, needs to be split up, x is the decimator, and then 10 and 4 needs to be made floats again)

Or could there be a better solution?