How to group a patch

[secco]

Dear all,

I read in the greybook that grouping is possible to make extra space on a patch by hiding elements away in a new canvas. But I can’t figure out how to create a group. The manual says “Create a group by typing “group” in the NodeBrowser.” But what then?
The reason I want to group is to make my patch easier to maintain. If I would create sub nodes instead, I couldn’t access the values of pads from the main patch. Is there a way to make pads global?

Thanks!

[chk]

HowTo Make a Node

[secco]

I know how to make nodes. But there I can’t access the data from pads in my main patch. I would need to create inputs and outputs for each of them. I thought that there is some other concept to group parts other than to create nodes. Or is there a way to access the data from a pad outside the node?

[chk]

Oh sorry, I must have overread your final question.

I think to get the value of a pad inside a node on the outside, it would always require to create some output on the process/class/record - either on Update for the whole Process, or assigned to a specific operation like GetValue and called on the state output of the node.

The concept of Global Channels might also be interesting here for you. I have not really looked into it myself yet and afaik it is not really well documented (please correct me if I am wrong). Here is something written about it:

https://thegraybook.vvvv.org/changelog/5.x.html#changes

[secco]

Thank you. I also stumbled across global channels but same as you, I couldn’t find any documentation and I didn’t understand if it could solve my issue.

[joreg]

@secco

The manual says “Create a group by typing “group” in the NodeBrowser.”

thanks for pointing this out. the docs were not really clear about this: Groups are only available on definition patches. added that info now.

@secco

I thought that there is some other concept to group parts other than to create nodes. Or is there a way to access the data from a pad outside the node?

i’m afraid no.