hi, im trying to install/load the Mark Williamson's MJLib external. I have tryed reading the docs on pd about externals but i am not quite catching on to this. the mjib extrenal just blows my meeger mind. eh, is it already compiled? do i need to compile it in c+? if its already compiled, how would i install it to pd? any help would be Greatly appriciated.

ok, i finaly figured out that in the mjib folder theres a librarry file called mjlib.dll, so i stuck that into the pd bin folder with pd.exe. i opened up my windows command line and typed c:\pd\bin\pd -lib mjlib.dll and it says it cant open the librarry. is this cuz i have the librarry in the wrong directory?

You're may be better off putting compiled externals in the directory 'extra' (assuming it exists, otherwise creating it). Then start pd with something like

c:\pd\bin\pd -path c:\pd\extra -lib mjlib

You will want to make yourself a .bat file with all of this and any other command line arguments (audio and midi config, any other paths (for your abstractions) etc etc) so that you don't have to type all this every time.

If you add %1 to the end of the command line in the bat file, then you can associate it with .pd files and they will open up (unfortunately in a new instance of pd each time) from explorer or wherever.

While I'm here, I might as well add that if your pd install starts getting a bit bloated (which, as half the libraries seem to depend on other libraries, is liable to happen), it might be benificial to not keep everything on one line in the bat file. You can do this by setting and appending / accessing variables something like this:

set pd_path=c:\pd\extra
set pd_path=%pd_path%;c:\pd\my_abs
set pd_libs=mjlib
set pd_libs=%pd_libs%;anotherlib

c:\pd\bin\pd -path %pd_path% -lib %pd_lib% %1

That makes it easier to add and remove things, and check what libs you are depending on, I think.

Hope that helps.

thanks alot, i got everything up and running. also, thanks for the extra bit of info.

It's good to get a chance to be the one doing the helping .

I can remember being a bit confused about this at first, too.