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Index › Suggestions & Bugs › Software,  Documentation,  Website Suggestions › Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
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Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash) (Read 2407 times)
roboHaus
Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Aug 5th, 2006, 5:51am  
Hello,

I have been using processing for a day now and I think it's brilliant and am very happy with all the tests I've done.

My purpose is to use it as an artist and prototyper, and I love the idea of the simple syntax and the balance struck of simple and technical.  I have no desire to use an IDE and I like the way you try to avoid that.

The only area I have trouble with is breaking apart big files.  I have read all the notes on libraries and this is the only point where I feel the software strays from it's thesis of simplicity.

In Flash (which I agree is 95% artist inferior) it is dead simple to break apart some text into a couple files and use:

#include "DrawStuff.as"

As a merging process.  There is no context passed, and script in the text file is identical in the file as if it were in the same pane.  All it does is when you add that line it takes the text and jams it into your file as though it was always there.

What this means to the artist is you can make something that's getting bigger and dump out some of the stuff you are not working on so you don't feel confused.

Why not include to Processing:

include DrawStuff.txt;

I feel this is an absolute best case scenario for aritsts.  Even the example code can get confusing here when you want to look at it in a clean way and this can be helpful.  There is no need for any IDE type interface to do this and no confusion for the artist.

I hope you consider this request, I can see the authors have strong opinions on it but this is really something that could be amazing for an ultimate artist experiment platform.

Even books are divided into chapters which are strung together... there is alot of presedence in creative work for breaking a project into pieces.

Take care,
RoboHaus
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roboHaus
Re: Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Reply #1 - Aug 5th, 2006, 5:57am  
Or if you wanted to get even simpler and more clear you could make the syntax:

MergeText DrawStuff.txt;
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JohnG
Re: Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Reply #2 - Aug 5th, 2006, 2:03pm  
Have you tried using the tabbed window feature of processing to keep chunks of code seperate?

At the far right side of the screen there's an arrow, click that and chose "New Tab" pick a name, and that'll create a new file that you can put code into, which is, when you come to un the skethc, just included with the rest fo the tabs into one chunk of code for processing to run.
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roboHaus
Re: Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Reply #3 - Aug 5th, 2006, 5:28pm  
Awesome.

Life is good.  This is exactly what I needed.
Thanks for the help Smiley

RoboHaus
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gabon
Re: Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Reply #4 - Aug 6th, 2006, 2:51am  
You can also create a folder called "code" and put .java files (or classes) in it for a further step towards the "ultimate artist experiment" development Cheesy
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{Christian Giordano's site and blog}
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ewjordan
Re: Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Reply #5 - Nov 19th, 2006, 11:57am  
This thread brings up a good point - the "New Tab" command is kind of hard to find if you don't know where to look.  It's not in any of the menu bars, you don't get it by right clicking on the tab bar, and the button that does let you manage tabs doesn't even light up when you hover, which makes the feature a bit tricky to find even once you know it's there (which a newcomer probably wouldn't, at least until reading the forum for a while).

I've never done much Windows programming - would it be very difficult to make this a little more obvious to the newcomer?  A simple hover glow and an appearance in the File menu would be enough, I think.
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lyricsride
Re: Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Reply #6 - Feb 25th, 2007, 4:56am  
Eric Jordan wrote on Nov 19th, 2006, 11:57am:
This thread brings up a good point - the "New Tab" command is kind of hard to find if you don't know where to look.  It's not in any of the menu bars, you don't get it by right clicking on the tab bar, and the button that does let you manage tabs doesn't even light up when you hover, which makes the feature a bit tricky to find even once you know it's there (which a newcomer probably wouldn't, at least until reading the forum for a while).

I've never done much Windows programming - would it be very difficult to make this a little more obvious to the newcomer  A simple hover glow and an appearance in the File menu would be enough, I think.


I agree. I am a new user, learning this language via a university course at Concordia University. I find this tabbing option interesting though i never heard of it until this thread (i was looking for an include solution).

Still, i find the tabbing option limiting in that, if, say, i wanted to have the same head code for a series of similar scripts (such as the setup) it would not be possible, currently. Maybe this will come with time.

Jason
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haliphax
Re: Simple Includes for Artists (Like Flash)
Reply #7 - Feb 26th, 2007, 2:07am  
could you not place them in the same package in a java environment and call each others' classes within the program?

like have exampleClass1.java and exampleClass2.java that both declare new classes, and both are in the package "pkgTest"..

exampleClass1's setup() function could have all the necessary stuff, and then in exampleClass2's setup, couldn't you just call "test.exampleClass1.setup();"?

i realize this goes outside of the processing development environment, but i think it would work.

Edited:

you might have to pass this to a completely separate, third class whose only purpose is to distribute uniform behavior amongst your tabbed classes. otherwise, you may run into trouble with which variables and objects are being addressed within your setup function..
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hx // curse
 
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