Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:02:05 -0400 From: marius schebella <mari...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [PD] Idiomatic Pd To: pd-l...@iem.at Message-ID: <488F...@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

I am quite pedantic in regard to spacing and aligning of objects. I started to space all objects using ctrl+arrow keys. that way all objects are spaced like on a grid and always a multiple of 10px away of each other. I don't know if that should go into a style guide, but for "official" patches like tutorials it could be considered.

If I work on big patches that run as installations (no interface) the parent patch is basically empty, it only shows piece information and credits, everything is in a subpatch called [MACHINE]. and that usually is more a visual representation of the space (according to positioning of sensors/speakers) or a basic overview of the patch structure with an short explanation of what the different subpatches are doing. even, if everybody says, pd patches are their own documentation, because everything is visible, that's not true, commenting should be an important part of patching (cyclone's comment allow differnt fonts, sizes, colors and width of comments).

then, for patches that rely on abstractions, *maybe* it would be good to give them either unique names or put them into subfolders. (I have to say, I do not really stick with this rule. but at least one thing: the main patch should always be recognizable, I usually put it in capital letters, so that people know, which patch to start.

resources (images, textfiles, data) could be kept in a subfolder, too. (just think of the GEM examples, how often one of the images or videos can not be found. - at least in the past).