Set Scripting Name value on add methods about py2max HOT 2 CLOSED

@HighHarmonics2

For such questions, what you should do in general is to create the simplest possible <name>.maxpat file to demonstrate your requirement using the Max application and then save the file. Then look at the .maxpat file in an editor and see how the changes you made are implemented in the .maxpat file.

So for the above requirement, create a single object in a Max file (let's say a [cycle~]) and populate the scripting name of the object from the Max application's inspector (let's say 'osc1') and then save. Then look at the file that was created in an editor and you will find that the Scripting Name field is implemented as varname in the .maxpat file.

So from py2max, you would then do the following to give an object a 'scripting name':

from py2max import Patcher
p = Patcher("outputs/test_scripting_name.maxpat")
p.add_textbox('cycle~ 440', varname='osc1')
p.save()

Incidentally, I have added the above case as a test (see tests/test_scripting_name.py)

You maybe thinking why we don't implement a scripting_name keyword api that maps between scripting_name and varname at the py2max level. The answer is because the current py2max implementation tries to minimally reflect the lower-level api of a .maxpat file and if you make a change in a py2max program you should be able to immediately check if that change is reflected in the .maxpat file. The tradeoff is that you have to remember that varname is mapped to Scripting Name in the Max Application.

It may be that in the future, one can implement a higher-level py2max api which reflects the api from the Max Application side. In this case you would use scripting_name rather than varname, but underneath the lower-level part of py2max would still be generating varname.

from py2max.

Thanks. I appreciate the detailed description. And it is helpful to know there is an easy way to find and specify additional values.

from py2max.