New Features

This page collects the new user features in DesireData.

1. Auto Completion - auto completion on object name (make your life a little bit easier)

  • Auto completion allows user to select through a collection of matching object according the input text in the objectbox

1.1 When editing the name of a object start the auto completion funtion by hitting the Tab key once

1.2 You will be presented with a completion box that contains possible matching objects, which looks like this:

1.3 At this point, you can either use the up/down arrow key to to through all matches, or continue to hit Tab key to cycle through them

1.4 If there are too many/few matches, you can simply continue to type or use backspace key to alter what's been typed in the objectbox, then the auto completion box will update itself with new matches accordingly

1.5 Once you found what you are looking for, simply hilight it and hit enter, or point and click on the desired item on the completion box

1.6 You can use the Exc key at any point to cancel and get rid of the auto completion window

2. Keyboard Navigation - patch without the mouse (make your life another bit easier)

  • This feature intends to eliminate the need for mouse in order to navigate in a patch and select/deselect objects and wires.

2.1 Initiate keyboard navigation

2.1.1 You can select a object or a wire with the mouse as the starting point of navigation

2.1.2 Or simply hit the Tab key without any object or wire been selected already

2.1.3 The Tab key in the keyboard navigation acts as the switch and the toggle. First, hitting Tab will activate the keyboard navigation function, which will bring up a visual pointer indicating which of the object is being pointed at. After activation, continue to hit Tab acts as toggle switch to switch between navigation for objects or navigation for wires. The visual indicator for the keyboard navigation is currently a yellow arrow:

the indicator for objects is a right-angled line at the top left side of the object

the indicator for wires is a pair of arrows pointing each side of the wire

2.1.4 At any point during the keyboard navigation, you can hit Esc key to deactivate this feature

2.1.5 note that once you have escaped the keyboard navigation with Esc key, DesireData remembers the last object/wire the key navigation is pointed at. So, next time when you activate the key navigation again, you will resume from the last position where you quit.

2.1.6 note that its easier to think of the visual indicator of the keyboard navigation feature the same as when you move the mouse pointer around, just that you don't have to "click again" to have the object currently pointed at to be selected.

2.2 Navigation method

2.2.1 Once you have the visual indicator in keyboard navigation, you can move this indicator around by using Ctrl+arrows keys. This is move the indicator to the next object/wire at the direction according to the arrow key you pressed.

2.2.2 By default, the object/wire that is currently being pointed at by the indicator is also selected. And using Ctrl+arrows will deselect the current object/wire when the indicator is moved to the next object/wire. To keep the current object/wire remain selected when you move the indicator away, simply use Ctrl+Shift+arrows to keep the current object/wire remain selected. This allows you to select multiple object/wires.

3. Wires2 - making connections without using mouse

  • This eliminates the need for mouse to make wires

3.1 When there is only one object selected, by conitnue hitting Ctrl+Tab will cycle through and highlight its in/outlet.

3.2 Once you have a outlet selected as above, use keyboard navigation method as described at 2. to move to the object you want to make the connection with.

3.3 Once you have selected another object for connection, use 4.1 to highlight a desired inlet. see below:

3.4 when you have a outlet and a inlet highlighted, hit the return key to establish the connection

4. Wires - making connecting/reconnecting wires easier

  • Some new features have been implemented to make working with wires easier (with the mouse)

4.1 Shift+Click allows multiple selection of wires

4.2 Ctrl+Click will turns the cliked wired into dashed wire again, which allows for reconnection. Depending on the position of your click, you can either detach the inlet or outlet for reconnection.

4.3 When making connection while holding down the Shift key, this will allow you to make more wires from the same outlet to different clicked inlet.

5. Zoom - patch zooming, making patch easier(or more difficult) to read

  • This feature zooms in/out on a patch

5.1 Use Ctrl+Plus key to zoom in on a patch

5.2 Use Ctrl+Minus key to zoom out on a patch

5.3 In addition, there is a spinbox widget at the toolbar that displays the current zoom percentage. You can also click on the up/down arrow there to zoom in/out.

6. Scale - reposition all object according to a scaling factor

6.1 Use Ctrl+shift+Plus key to scale up a patch

6.2 Use Ctrl+shift+Minus key to scale down a patch

7. Copy patch into clipboard

  • This feature allows the selected portion of a patch to be copied into the clipboard

7.1 select all on the patch canvas, or parts of the patch

7.2 use the Ctrl+c key to copy the selected area

7.3 now, the selected portion of the patch is in the clipboard, and can be used as you like. ie, paste it in a text editor:

8. Class browser

  • This feature enables user to quickly find a object that they are looking for and launch its help file

8.1 To get to the class browser, simply right click on the empty canvas space and select Help. or, go to the help menu and select Class Browser. Then the class browser looks like this:

8.2 you can either use the scroll bar to see thourgh all avaiable objects, or use the Filter entry box to limit the number of displayed objects. Filter box works the same as auto-completion, the class browser will display the potential matches according to what you typed

8.3 Class browser also displays some basic information about the highlighted object. Once you found what you are looking for, simply click on Help to launch its help file.

9. Crosshair

  • When the crosshair feature is enabled in DesireData, you will get a crosshair in the edit mode. This help those who like things to be perfectly lined up.

9.1 In addition, the crosshair has has a Snap to object feature, which will snap the crosshair at the top left corner of the object whenever the mouse pointer is over a object and while moving objects. This allows you to see the alignment of the object that are beening selected or moved.

9.2 The crosshair can be enabled/disabled via the client preference editor (.ddrc editor), under the others section/tab

10. Multiple undo/redo

  • DesireData has the implementation of multiple undo/redo, this is achieved by !Desredata keeping a record of the histroy list

10.1 simply use the undo/redo keybinding multiple times to go back to the changes made several steps ago. The default undo/redo keybindings in DesireData is ctrl+z for undo and ctrl+Z for redo

11. Font chooser

11.1 There is a font chooser to help selecting different font to be used in the patch. It can be found in the ddrc editor.

12. .ddrc

12.1 Since DesireData adds the ability to customize many aspects of the original PureData (such as color and key bindings), there is now a config file to store such customization.

12.2 This file is called .ddrc and lives in your home directory. The .ddrc file is managed and updated through the .ddrc editor in DesireData, though if you want to edit .ddrc in a text editor, you can.

12.3 .ddrc is formated in the key-value pair fashion, an example of .ddrc can be seen here.

13. Automatic object insertion

13.1 This feature provides the ability to insert object between connect objects without having to disconnect/connect wires. The wire connection is managed automatically

13.2 To insert a object, first select a wire that you like to insert the object into. then Ctrl+i, or right click and select insert.

13.3 Alternatively, by dragging a unconnected object into a path of a wire while holding down the Ctrl key will insert the object into the wire path

14. Automatic object chaining

14.1 this feature provides the ability to (vertically) connect objects together automatically

14.2 To chain objects together, first select a object to be used as the start of the chain

14.3 Then press Ctrl+6, a empty object box will appear and aligned vertically under the selected object.

14.4 Once you hit enter and the new object is created, its hot inlet is automatically connected to the hot outlet of the object above it.

14.5 Furthermore, the newly created object is now selected to allow the chaining process to repeat

15. Automatic object removal

15.1 In DesireData, you can remove a object from a set of connected objects without breaking the wires. This should provide a time-saving solution so that user don't need to reconnect wires everytime a object is removed.

15.2 To remove a object without breaking the connections, simply click on the object while holding down the Ctrl key. or use the shortcut key Ctrl+j

15.3 Alternatively, select the object to be removed, and right click, then select Remove object

16. Batch wire deletion

16.1 This feature provides the ability to disconnect all wires connected to and connected from the selected object.

16.2 Once a object is selected, you can either use the key Ctrl+k or right click and select Clear wires

17. FireFox style Find

17.1 with key Ctrl+f you can bring up a FireFox style find widget at the bottom of the canvas window.

18. No Bars

18.1 A default canvas window typically consists of the following components, a menu bar, a buttun bar, a status bar and x/y scrollbars.

18.2 In DesireData, user can configure the appearance of a canvas window in such a say that it only consists of the canvas itself.

18.3 note that you can set the scrollbars to show/hide automatically if the canvas window can see partial or all objects

19. Find last error new style

19.1 DesireData now has a new way to display the find last error feature in PureData. In the new style, the last error will appear as a popup box over where the error is.

back

Attachments