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Need your smartest tricks for my Wiki

#1

I am building a Wiki page, with simple things that could be usefull for other (new) members.

Some Tips, Hints and Tricks I learned using VVVV…

I was hoping you all could contribute some stuff.

You know, simple things you came accros when patching, stuff that isn’t in the helpfiles, but handy to know.

I am going to make patches demostrating it, and hope it is just an extra for every one that is trying to learn VVVV, or for the experienced users that like to know some tricks.

So, please, feel free to share here, and I will add it to the Wiki.

#2

ok, i have a special one. this idea came to my mind during my last meso project. it was related to interactive user input. its a time dependant event filter, it switches to 1 only if the user made a decision longer than a certain time … äh hard to explain, see patch (place the two patches in the same folder):

DelayFilter.v4p (4.5 kB)
DelayFilterHelp.v4p (8.9 kB)

#3

This trick shows how to measure the time that goes from event to event (eg. mouseclicks) using stopwatch, a framedelay and a s+h node. the stopwatch is contstantly running but just reseted when events happen. at the moment an event occur the actual time of the watch is sampled (or stopped in other language) by an s+h node.
the trick is now no let the watch run one vvvv frame longer before beeing reseted. this time s+h measures the latest time of the clock before returning to second 0.

hm btw. if (hopefully) this list grows and grows it would be cool to sort the tricks after themes like Timing (eg the delay filter, timebetween events), Spreading, Gui stuff etc…

and maybe its better to make the list itself public so you have less work in actualising the list :)

TimeBetweenEvents.v4p (8.0 kB)

#4

some of my hints

forceIOinteger only works with values greater -1

keepCleanStructureInPatches.v4p (65.8 kB)
forceIOboxboolean.v4p (7.5 kB)
forceIOboxInteger.v4p (10.3 kB)
keepCleanStructureInPatches#0.jpg (125.2 kB)
keepCleanStructureInPatches#1.jpg (114.7 kB)
keepCleanStructureInPatches#2.jpg (108.8 kB)
forceIOboxboolean#0.jpg (37.1 kB)
forceIOboxInteger#0.jpg (67.0 kB)

#5

Wow, thnx people :) Some work to do hehehe…

And double thanx to Kalle, but some off these patches should go in the tutorial section ;)

I am specialy looking for the use off Nodes that are not so obvious when you look at the help file. Like the multi-functionality off the B-spline node for example.

When I have enough I will make some sub-pages, already have enough stuff to devote one page to all types off buttons. But I do not know how (yet) to make it ‘public’.

#6

double thanks? has to be triple thanks or did i forget one file?
just kidding.

But I do not know how (yet) to make it ‘public’.

i don’t know if you have the permission to rename wikipages.
my suggestion would be:
(oh, please don’t feel offended, your idea is great but its not only your tricks…)

suggestions?
discussion?
opinions?

…I will make some sub-pages…

please be careful with subpages otherwise we soon get that lots of subpages…
i personally would prefer one longer site.
(of course exceptional extensional topics which have to get subpages…)
TikiWiki has that useful and feature; i am going to add that to your site right now…

#7

this is how to force an IOBox to integer behavior, even if its spreaded:

IntegerIOBox.v4p (5.1 kB)

#8

Great to have this problem solved :) (cozz it works)
And the Boolean one is good, right?? ;)

Will up it there as soon as I am done with electro’s one.

#9

boolean can be done with the same trick i think… but haven’t tested this yet.

#10

Ehh… forcing Boolean on an Iobox, do it with inspector, select “Toggle” by slider behaivor… and set the Min to 0 and Max to 1 and you have the Boolean behaivor (??) (no nodes needed now)

#11

and you have the Boolean behaivor (??)

inside that patch: yes
but go to the root and try it there. no more boolean.

see screenshots of the day.

#12

You want an IObox to act like Boolean, so you can enter some presets?? Can’t think off another reason you want an Ibox to act boolean inside a patch, I mean, nodes connected on the input and output of the IObox.

If you want an IObox act like integer inside a patch (both sides connected) use the Frac node, although it is not a nice way to round off the values… arghh… more complicated than I thought ;)

Any one more tricks to share??

#13

You want an IObox to act like Boolean, so you can enter some presets?? Can’t think off another reason you want an Ibox to act boolean inside a patch, I mean, nodes connected on the input and output of the IObox.

???

I don’t get your point.
I often want that boolean behaviour on inlets of a module.
Whats up with presets?

#14

this is not really a trick but a feature thats often overseen. its about spreading spreads :) or spreading the spreadcount of spreadgenerators like linearspread, random spread, circularspread etc… this often comes handy if you like to spread a whole patchstructure several times. it also shows how to use the select node to adapt spreads with different counts so that they have the same count and match each other correctly (typical usage are matching x, y and z coordinates.

this is only a real simple example, this topic fills a new tutorial something like “working with spreads advanced”… or “multidimensional spreads” ;)

SpreadingSpreads.v4p (9.0 kB)

#15

ah, i think this is a good one:

i formed a habit of saving some patches as BlaBla (Tutorial).v4p into my modules folder.
e.g.: the above mentioned (very fine!) patch of elektromeier is saved as SpreadingSpreads (Tutorial).v4p
my RegExpr (Tutorial).v4p contains all most every Regular Expression i ever used. same with XPath (Tutorial).v4p.
so you can keep the original helppatches and have an own category of tutorials in your nodelist.

and in the end migrating to the next betaversion is much easier.
when you are carrying your patches,modules,effects,freeframe.dlls,own helpfiles since beta3 or so: YOU know what i mean.
do you want to compare every file in the "help"folder to see if you made an own?

i remember that @gregsn once made a tutorialpatch about transformation hierarchies. i can’t find it anymore. somebody knows the location?

#16

another way to force integer inputs

kinda awkward because select nodes produce large spreads with large numbers, but flawless even in saved modules and subpatches.
And it works with older vvvv versions too.

#17

@ Majortom, that select node creates a spreadcount off the highest value off the spread!! Check your expample, I don’t want a 792 spread in my patch to force 6 values to integer!! (large spreads take up CPU!!)

But any other cool node combos you use a lot and think are handy to know and share?? :)

#18

Thanks West and all contributors, this site already helped me a lot :)

#19

hi west,

finally i have something for you:

hotkey strg+6 / strg+7 fades the patch “background” from grey to white/black. kalle will probably like that one :)

benedikt

#20

@MrBenefit:
of course i knew that one.
years ago i added this to the keyboard shortcuts.
this way i discovered the backgroundcolor option which made my module SetBGColor (VVVV).v4p possible.
can be downloaded at kalle-Modules-VVVV (bottom of page)

;)

CTRL-8,CTRL-9,CTRL-0 are also funny but sadly they can’t be scripted.

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