Not sure this is a bug, but it did cause me quite a bit of head scratching and some questions in the forum.
When you make a node, the IOBoxes etc. updates nicely in the patch tab, but if you delete or move the node, the patch tab stop responding, but the instance in the patch keeps working fine.
If you close the patch tab and open it again by middle clicking the node, it updates nicely again. See the attached example.
I don’t know what the desired behavior should be, but it would be nice if it was possible to see in the patch window that the patch is not showing an active instance or perhaps have it automagically show an active instance if there is one and perhaps give you the option to jump between instances if there are multiple.
this is currently not considered a bug by us. But everything that users consider a bug is something we need to review.
Here is a description of how the system currently works:
The entry point (main App patch) always shows the current instance.
When you enter a patch by walking into a process node application you see that exact instance
When you enter a patch by opening a definition or by just changing the tab you’ll either see the latest instance that got attached or if none is attached it will pick the first that gets executed
When you hover any pin inside a patch that doesn’t seem to respond and no clock spins in the tooltip, it means that either no instance is running or it is still attached to another. While the tooltip is open, press TAB to try to fetch a new instance. Keyboard Shortcuts | vvvv gamma documentation (We once had a message in the tooltip telling you about whether it’s still attached or whether no instance seems to be running. Not sure why those don’t show up anymore. Need to double check that)
The reasoning for sticking to an instance is that sometimes patches don’t run on update and only seldomly get executed. You still want to be attached to the same instance in order to be able to debug this instance. Switching to the next could be quite confusing in these cases.
The example you came up with is one where we might be able to detach automatically, as you were deleting a process node. The system could potentially detect this case and detach from this instance.
Regarding the UX: pressing TAB on tooltips in order to detach the UI from the “patch instance” might be something worth having a look at. Since the whole patch reacts - even ioboxes - hiding this gesture on the tooltip might be confusing. We’ll review this. There are other ideas on how to present information about the patch and the system and on how to interact. Please stay tuned!
EDIT: upcoming previews for now show hints in tooltips again
