New slider/display object specification

Adrian Freed

10/17/90

The idea is to make the slider more useful in displaying and manipulating arrays of values. It would mesh better with the DSP object which sends arrays of values around. Applications where this is useful include graphic EQ and spectral displays, where there is a set of discrete frequency bands. Comparing multiple streams of midi controller or gestural information.

The design is derived from the HyperDsp displays:

The project would proceed in steps modifying the existing slider external:

1. Add support of floats. If a floating point number is specified for the upper and lower bound parameters the object accepts and outputs floating point numbers appropriately scaled. Buttons or a popup should be provided in the dialog box to specify two standard default intervals: 0..1.0 and -1.0..1.0.
2. Add way of changing the displayed slider icon. A thin horizontal line is an important option.
3. Accept list of floats and list of ints. On receipt of a list, the object counts the number of elements and refreshes the display, carving up the horizontal axis into the required number of display sliders and setting their values individually.
4. Object resizing stretches the elements (it doesn't add to the number of parameters).
5. Interaction with the sliders should be such that one value can be changed individually and that while the mouse button is down the cursor can be swept accross the other values (like the table object interaction)
6. Add a style for this kind of display:
7. Add a style for the strip chart.
8. Each time a new list is received the image is scrolled down a pixel and the new values are drawn into the top. Options include a single line from 0 (as shown above) or a simple point (for an oscilloscop/strip chart effect).
9. Full support of horizontal and vertical orientations.