live.path and relative paths

[Because789]

Can someone explain me, why live.path acts as observer (i.e. it spits out the id with change of selection) with "path live_set view selected_track" or "path live_set view selected_scene", but it doesn't act like this with "path live_set view highlighted_clip_slot"?

Code: Select all

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[chapelier fou]

no idea !
But thank you very much, i didn't know that live.path would act as an observer (what's the point of observers in these cases ??).

[Because789]

You're welcome!

I discovered it by accident, but it's stated in the Live API Overview that "live.path can also observe the given path, and when the object at this path changes, its id is sent to the middle outlet." So I'd say in cases where it works, there's no point of using an observer.

But I thought that it would work for all relative paths. Obviously this isn't the case. It smells a bit like a bug, or at least a lack of documentation...

[broc]

Notice that the LOM doesn't list 'observe' access for highlighted_clip_slot, in contrast to the others.
So there is probably a technical reason for the difference.

[Because789]

Notice that the LOM doesn't list 'observe' access for highlighted_clip_slot, in contrast to the others.
So there is probably a technical reason for the difference.

Interesting! It still seems a bit strange to me, but at least it doesn't look like a bug or lack of documentation anymore. Thanks broc!

[Myralfur]

yes, live.path's can do some handy observer type stuff! it is explained in the documentation and live.path help file, i seem to remember anyway. the left outlet of live path outputs the id of whatever object is currently at the path you send it. the middle outlet outputs the id of whatever object is currently at the path but then also keeps observing for any changes.

for instance if you use a live path to monitor the id of what track is the 1st track, or track 0. so you send live.path the message "path live_set tracks 0". if you then look at the output from the middle outlet you'll see the current id of the track at 0. then go to ableton and drag the first track to the right, making a different track move to being position 1, or 0. the output from the middle outlet of live.path will have changed to show the id of the track that has been dragged to position track 0. so you can effectively observe the id of a path.

live.observers are of course still very useful. you can't use live.path to get the value of a property, i.e observe the tempo of a live set. live.observers can also be used to observe the children of parts of the live set. so if you get the id for the live_set you can then send that id to the right inlet of live.observer and send it a message "property tracks". this will observe the ids of all tracks within the live set and output them as a list. to do this with a live.path you'd need to create loads of them and hope you never made more tracks than you had live.paths. with live.observers you just observe the child and get a list of varying length depending how many tracks there are.

[Myralfur]

also the highlighted clip slot only changes when the selected track and selected scene change... so i just observe the selected track and selected scene, as children of live_set view using a live.observer rather than live.path, and then send "get highlighted_clip_slot" to a live.object whenever either the selected_track or selected_scene change.

[Myralfur]

also i still tend to shy away from using live.path objects where i can. probably not an issue any more but they used to be pretty damn slow to get an id, it was much quicker to use live.objects and live.observers and get all the ids as children of live_set.

so even in a lot of current patches, i get the id of the live_set or live_app from a live.path. every id after that i get from going through the live object model hierarchy getting the children of each object in the api.

[Because789]

Thanks for all this usefull informations Myralfur!

also the highlighted clip slot only changes when the selected track and selected scene change... .

I can't follow you here, "path live_set view highlighted_clip_slot" works just as the name suggests?!?

I never had the impression that live.path is slow, but I'm a noob and also never built a device which makes use of tons of live.path objects...

[Myralfur]

have a look at this, will hopefully show what i mean. a way of "observing" the highlighted_clip_slot, without being able to observe it, heh.

<pre><code>
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-----------end_max5_patcher-----------
</code></pre>

[Myralfur]

if you look in ableton's session view the highlighted_clip_slot is the clip slot between the selected_track and selected_scene. the only way to change the highlighted_clip_slot is effectively by moving the selected_track or selected_scene (if you change the highlighted_clip_slot it also changes the selected_track and selected_scene.

so, to "observe" the highlighted_clip_slot you can observe the selected_track and selected_scene and whenever either of them changes get the highlighted_clip_slot.

[Because789]

Ah, now I understand. It seems to me that the first live.object isn't necessary, "path live_set view" to a live.path should give you the same result, but otherwise this might be very useful under certain circumstances. Although I think I would avoid it as long as possible and just send a bang to the "get highlighted_clip_slot" message if possible...

[Myralfur]

i wrote it out in a slightly long, or verbose, way to show how you can get numerous ids using [live.object] and [live.observer] with only 1 [live.path] getting the parent id.

here's an example only using [live.path] objects:

<pre><code>
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</code></pre>

[Myralfur]

here's 4 ways of "observing" the highlighted_clip_slot id. they all do the same thing, but with varying amounts of [live.path] objects.

the one you'd choose to use would depend on the rest of the programming.

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</code></pre>

[Because789]

Awesome, thanks Myralfur!