Hi all,
Sorry if this is the wrong section to post, but it seemed the most appropriate place.

I'm not sure if there's a solution to this (very simple) problem, but wanted to check.
So I understand how to open a subpatch via pd message:
|; (
|pd-nameofsubpatch vis $1(

At the moment, I control the argument $1 using a radio button, which outputs either a 0 or 1. This works nicely as an Open/Close object for the subpatch.

What would be useful for me is to receive the current Open/Close status of a subpatch. For example, imagine the subpatch is already open, however the subpatch window is large and takes up the full screen. It's therefore less convenient to move the subpatch to be able to click on the aforementioned radio button and close it.
It's much more convenient to simply click the red cross on the subpatch window - however this does not then make the corresponding change to the radio button (so it still says "Open" even though the user closed the subpatch).

So is there a way to receive information on the Open/Close status of a specific subpatch? If I can receive this info, it's obviously then trivial to alter the state of the radio button.

Thanks in advance for your time.
Oli

If you're using Pd-extended 0.43, check out [iemguts/receivecanvas]. When you close the window that the object is associated with, it will dump out "menuclose 0".

@Joe: thanks for your response. The additional bang inside the subpatch is an option I hadn't thought of.. I guess if I coloured it red and placed it in the top right corner it would be quite convenient.

@maelstrom: Thanks.. I'll look into this tomorrow.

Cheers,
Oli

Not sure if this thread will be noticed for further clarification, but I am still having trouble trying open a subpatch with a bang. Partially, I have to admit, I am still a novice at understanding the shorthand used to explain what one is supposed to do.

So, I tried this:

|; (
|pd-nameofsubpatch vis $1(

I tried it as an object and a message. I am sure I am doing something stupidly wrong.

If I have a subpatch that is called blah how do I automatically open said window.

A perhaps different question I have is this:

I am looking into doing a piece where I will want there to be message that will "pop-up" for the performers to react to. As I see it right now, there are three potential ways to do.

1: Just put a canvas over the window patch that I am working in. Have that be my main window and while the piece is running, I would then put text, images, and such on that canvas. I could also delete and create the canvas at will as needed. This might be the easiest solution. However, as I understand it, the least elegant.

2: Use GEM. Now, GEM seems to me to be more for images and moving images than text and such. However, one of the things one can EASILY do in GEM is open and close a window. Especially a window that does NOT "easily" accept information from the mouse and clicking. This could be elegant, but it is not conducive to using text. GEM again is designed for images and motion of images.

3: Open a subpatch window that would contain a canvas and that canvas would have the text and minor imaging that I would want to add. Also, this window and canvas would have to be easily closed. Seems to me to be the best solution if easily attainable.

Now, what I am hoping I can do is to make music notation via MIDI through algorithmic composition procedures and place that musical notation in this window at some point down the road. It seems like some suggest using Rosegarden. Is that really the best tool to use to create music notation from information generated from PD?

Help would be greatly appreciated,
William

If I have a subpatch that is called blah how do I automatically open said window.

|;pd-blah vis 1( to open
|;pd-blah vis 0( to close

remark: for doing the same with an abstraction prepend .pd (pd-blah.pd vis 1)

Thank you for your help.

William

Something extra, for complementing the help @pulsed has given you, William.

You can use a bang, a little toggle, and $1 in the message.

Opening a subpatch with bang, toggle, and message.pd

Cordially, Landon

Hey, so, I got this working. Thanks so much. I should probably make a new subject heading, but here goes. Is there a way to resize a subpatch window? And other types of functions such as that? Maybe freeze the size of the window?

Think canvas adjustments, but only on the actual window? Also, is there a tutorial for this so that I do not bug the forum boards too much?

Yes there is!

[donecanvasdialog 1 -1 2 0 -1 1 1 $1 $2 0 0(

$1 and $2 should adjust the limit size. The other numbers affect the other variables, although I don't remember the order.

It's probably a good idea to stop the subpatch asking to save, using "dirty 0"

[donecanvasdialog 1 -1 2 0 -1 1 1 $1 $2 0 0, dirty 0(

JFYI, [donecanvasdialog( has these parameters:

[ donecanvasdialog <x-units> <y-units> <gop> <x-from> <y-from> <x-to> <y-to> <x-size> <y-size> <x-margin> <y-margin> (

All these values are also available in "Properties" dialog of canvas, the <gop> parameter can have 3 values:
0 = GOP off
1 = GOP on & show object name and parameters
2 = GOP on & hide object name and parameters

This info comes from .mmb aka Maelstrom.

Gosh I am such a newbie. Sorry for my questions which I should probably know better one.

So, I tried it and have not gotten it working yet.

First off, should there be a semicolon in the message box? Isn't that needed?

Also, should I explicitly put the "donecanvasdialog" box at the beginning of the box? The name of the window is not used? Think like how you open a subpatch such as blah this way:

|;
pd-blah vis 1(

so, is it something like:

|;
pd-blah donecanvasdialog 1 -1 2 0 -1 1 1 $1 $2 0 0(

whoa. . . I just did that! Ok, so that does do some interesting things! That being said, it changes the look of the object created in the parent window.

Can be useful. Now my desire is to make an application that the user cannot really adjust that much.

Am I able to "freeze" in place the size of a window in Pure Data?

@raynovich asked:

First off, should there be a semicolon in the message box? Isn't that needed?

The semicolon is used when you want to send the message to specific object:

[; blah hello (

this is the same as:

[hello (
|
[send blah]    

The first version is shorter, but the second is easier to use with $0 in names.
Read more about messages here: http://en.flossmanuals.net/pure-data/dataflow-tutorials/messages/

...and nope, there is no "freeze" option in Pd.

Is there a way to prevent closing an opened subpatch window? I mean, to disable the OS-side 'x' button on top of the window.
I know this is possible in Max

You can do something like this with [sys_gui] from the hcs library. See the helpfile [hcs/window_name] under "MAC OS X tricks" and "Windows tricks". But it's pretty hackish and I wouldn't count on it working in all systems.

@LiamG Thanks a lot. I'll look into it.
In the meantime I also found this, which could serve for my purpose https://puredata.info/downloads/kiosk-plugin