Interactions for fast patching (in vanilla)

[ben-wes]

Collecting all interactions here that I got used to for patching in vanilla Pd with a few comments about the state in plugdata (hoping that I checked correctly). Maybe this contributes in some way to the current work on the canvas functionality:

object creation (while an object is selected)

• create connected object via cmd + 1 ⚠️ connection only visible after creation though
• create connected message via cmd + 2
• create connected numberbox via cmd + 3
• create connected listbox via cmd + 4
• tab to confirm entry / move focus out of text editing ⚠️ same can be achieved with return in plugdata, which makes sense in the autocomplete context though (in vanilla, this creates line breaks which are not saved anyway though)
• cmd + d to duplicate (without connections), moves object (10, 10) pixels ⚠️ duplicates object next to current instance(s) - vanilla users need to adapt to this behavior which was obviously added on purpose
• cmd + c --> cmd + v inserts object (without connections) at (10, 10) pixels offset or at identical position in different canvas ⚠️ pastes objects at mouse position in plugdata
• cmd + x --> cmd + v cuts / pastes object at identical position (without connections) ⚠️ pastes objects at mouse position in plugdata - vanilla users can certainly adapt, but it might be considerable to allow pasting in position? (maybe if the mouse wasn't moved during the process? - although that might be too much of a hidden feature)
• cmd + t to insert trigger object in selected control connection (with selected text input)
• cmd + t to insert nop signal subpatch in selected signal connection (with selected text input)

aligning objects

• cmd + shift + r to align objects (vertically or horizontally depending on their positions) ⚠️ plugdata has grid alignment instead of this
• arrow keys to move objects pixel-wise
• shift + arrow keys to quicker move objects (10-pixel-steps) ⚠️ inverted in plugdata - but certainly a useful approach when assuming that the bigger steps are the default and the rest is assisted aligmnent

mode management

• cmd + e to switch between edit- and run-mode
• pressing cmd while in edit-mode allows interactions like run-mode

connection management

• dragging from outlet without mouseup allows to create multiple connections by pressing shift for each target inlet
• cmd + k while 1 object with connections is selected: remove all connections ⚠️ plugdata has the option to select a group and do cmd + shift + k though
• cmd + k while 2 objects without connections selected: creates connection from upper to lower object
  • repeatedly pressing cmd + k when upper object has 1 outlet and lower one has more: connects multiple connections to all inlets of lower object (only valid for signal rate objects!)
  • repeatedly pressing cmd + k when upper object has multiple outlets: creates parallel connections
• cmd + k while object and connection are selected: inserts object in connection
• cmd + k while single object with connections is selected: deletes connections (never using this though since i just do cut/paste in this case)
• cmd + k while 3 objects with connections in row are selected: remove middle object from connection
• cmd + k while 3 objects are selected where 2 are connected: insert separate object to connection
• dragging from outlet while 2 objects with multiple outlets/inlets are selected without mouseup: pressing shift creates all parallel connections starting from source outlets to target inlets
• dragging from outlet while more than 2 objects selected without mouseup: pressing shift creates connections from same outlets of other objects to target object's multiple inlets
• dragging from outlet of one of multiple selected objects to unselected target object: pressing shift creates connections from same outlets of other objects to target object's single inlet
• dragging from unselected object while multiple target objects are selected: pressing shift creates multiple connections to same target inlet
• cmd + d while connection is selected: add parallel connection
• shift + click on other connection while connection is selected: flip connection inlets or outlets (depending on the selected combination - pretty nice for trigger management) ⚠️ this is used to select multiple connections in plugdata - so can't be adapted in the exact same way from vanilla
  • TS: I've replaced this with 'shift + doubleclick' for plugdata, to resolve ambiguity with multi select.

automatic subpatch connection

• when adding a connected subpatch (by creating [pd ...] from another selected object with cmd+1), automatically add an inlet to the subpatch (this is not possible with a subpatch added to a connetion via cmd+t though in vanilla)

trigger management

• cmd + t while 1 object is selected with multiple connections from single outlet: inserts [trigger] object to distribute outgoing connections
• cmd + t while trigger object is selected with connections for each outlet: adds anything-outlet on the left
• cmd + t while trigger object is selected with less connections than outlets: removes unnecessary outlets
• cmd + t while trigger object is selected with multiple connections for single outlet: adds outlets to distribute all connections
• cmd + t while trigger object is selected with more outlets than necessary: removes obsolete outlets

console

• cmd + r to show/hide Pd window/console (this might be nice in plugdata, too, for showing/hiding the console - even though it's not a separate window there ... in general, i really appreciate vanilla's "distraction free" appearance a lot and would love to see something similar like a "distraction free mode" for plugdata where i only see the canvas and nothing else)
  • TS: plugdata has 'cmd + ]' for this. You can also hide the palette bar with 'cmd + ['

[ben-wes]

here are 3 videos displaying these and more mechanisms of "intelligent patching":

• https://vimeo.com/273707442
• https://vimeo.com/279631360
• https://vimeo.com/340437816

and here is more discussion and context around these developments on the vanilla side:

• intelligent patching amendments pure-data/pure-data#575

i missed some stuff in the description above, which i never use (yet) though, like:

•  cycling through outlets while dragging via tab or shift + tab
• cycling through target inlets while dragging via tab (only possible on linux and windows since it obviously relies on changing mouse positions - and since shift creates a connection, the shift + tab combination doesn't seem to useful to me in this case)
• paste and replace (which doesn't have a shortcut - although i wonder now if it might actually be an option to have this as an implicit cmd + v behavior if there's 1 object on the "clipboard" and other objects are selected?)

[ben-wes]

@porres worked a lot on getting these things in the docs for the next vanilla release. we also added pictures and some more details. here's the current version:
https://github.com/porres/pure-data/blob/manual-chapter2-revsion/doc/1.manual/x2.htm