purr-data

Purr-Data

Maintainers:

• Ivica Ico Bukvic (Pd-l2ork)
• Jonathan Wilkes (Purr Data)
• Albert Graef (GitHub Mirror, JGU Packages)

Contact: DISIS mailing list

GitLab Repository:

Official Purr Data source code in the "master" branch.

GitHub Mirror:

Mirrors the GitLab "master" branch, and also has "release" and "testing" branches, binary packages, a website, and a wiki (WIP).

Contents:

• Downloads
• One Paragraph Overview
• Three Paragraph Overview
• Goals
• User Guide
• Relationship of Purr Data to Pure Data
• Build Guide
  • Gnu/Linux
  • OSX
  • Windows
• Code of Conduct
• Project Governance
• Contributor Guide
• Human Interface Guidelines
• Core Pd Notes
• GUI Message Spec

One Paragraph Overview

Pure Data (aka Pd) is a visual programming language. That means you can use it to create software graphically by drawing diagrams instead of writing lines of code. These diagrams show how data flows through the software, displaying on the screen what text-based languages require you to piece together in your mind.

Three Paragraph Overview

Pd has been designed with an emphasis on generating sound, video, 2D/3D graphics, and connecting through sensors, input devices, and MIDI as well as OSC devices.

Pd has a special emphasis on generating audio and/or video in real time, with low latency. Much of its design focuses on receiving, manipulating, and delivering high-quality audio signals. Specifically, the software addresses the problem of how to do this efficiently and reliably on general purpose operating systems like OSX, Windows, Debian, etc.-- i.e., systems designed mainly for multi-tasking.

Pd can easily work over local and remote networks. It can be used to integrate wearable technology, motor systems, lighting rigs, and other equipment. Pd is also suitable for learning basic multimedia processing and visual programming methods, as well as for realizing complex systems for large-scale projects.

Goals

Purr-Data has the following goals:

1. Documentation. We like documentation. It's like code, except friendly.
2. Be reliable. Binary releases must be usable for performances and installations. The git repo must always be in a workable state that can be compiled. Regressions must be fixed quickly.
3. Be discoverable. Undocumented features are buggy. Missing help files are bugs. Patches for new functionality that lack documentation are spam.
4. Be consistent. Consistent interfaces are themselves a kind of documentation. We like documentation, so it follows that we like consistent interfaces.

User Guide and Weblinks

For a more in-depth look at Purr Data for new users and developers, see:

For more resources see:

For Ico Bukvic's original Pd-l2ork website see:

Relationship of Purr Data to Pure Data

At the time of this writing, there are four maintained distributions of Pure Data, two of which (Purr Data, Pd-l2ork) belong to the Pd-extended lineage.

1. Purr Data. This started out as the 2.0 version of Pd-l2ork. It ships with lots of external libraries and uses a modern GUI written using HTML5.
2. Pd-l2ork is the version used by Ivica Bukvic for his laptop orchestra. Pd-l2ork 1.0 used tcl/tk (and tkpath) for the GUI. Pd-l2ork 2.x is a fork of an earlier Purr Data version which is developed separately. You can find these here.
3. Pure Data "Vanilla". Miller Puckette's personal version which he hosts on his website and maintains. It doesn't come with external libraries pre-installed, but it does include an interface you can use to search and install external libraries maintained and packaged by other developers.
4. Plugdata. A new libpd-based distribution of Pure Data which can be run as a plugin. See .

Downloads

Windows, Ubuntu, and Mac OSX:

Releases are done on Albert Gräf's GitHub mirror, which also provides a website, wiki, additional documentation, and an up-to-date mirror of the source code repository.

More Linux packages:

Packages for various Linux distributions (including Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora) are available through the JGU package repositories maintained by Albert Gräf on the OBS (Open Build System). Detailed instructions can be found here.

You can also just go to the OBS Download, pick your Linux system, and follow the instructions.

Build Guide

Purr Data is usually built by just running make in the toplevel source directory after checking out the sources from its git repository. This works across all supported platforms (Linux, Mac and Windows at this time). The Makefile also offers the customary targets to clean (make clean, or make realclean to put the sources in pristine state again) and to roll a self-contained distribution tarball (make dist), as well as some other convenience targets (please check the comments at the beginning of the Makefile for more information).

However, to make this work, you will most likely have to install some prerequisites first: build tools such as a C/C++ compiler and the make program itself, as well as dependencies, the libraries that Purr Data needs. Detailed instructions for each of the supported platforms are given below.

Linux

Time to build: 10 minutes light install, 45 minutes to 1.5 hours full install Hard drive space required: roughly 2.5 GB

1. Remember to update your packages:

    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
   

2. Install the dependencies:

    sudo apt-get install bison flex automake libasound2-dev \
         libjack-jackd2-dev libtool libbluetooth-dev libgl1-mesa-dev \
         libglu1-mesa-dev libglew-dev libmagick++-dev libftgl-dev \
         libgmerlin-dev libgmerlin-avdec-dev libavifile-0.7-dev \
         libmpeg3-dev libquicktime-dev libv4l-dev libraw1394-dev \
         libdc1394-22-dev libfftw3-dev libvorbis-dev ladspa-sdk \
         dssi-dev tap-plugins invada-studio-plugins-ladspa blepvco \
         swh-plugins mcp-plugins cmt blop slv2-jack omins rev-plugins \
         libslv2-dev dssi-utils vco-plugins wah-plugins fil-plugins \
         mda-lv2 libmp3lame-dev libspeex-dev libgsl0-dev \
         portaudio19-dev liblua5.3-dev python-dev libsmpeg0 libjpeg62-turbo \
         libgsm1-dev libgtk2.0-dev git libstk0-dev \
         libfluidsynth-dev fluid-soundfont-gm byacc \
         python3-markdown
   

   Note: The given package names are for a generic Debian/Ubuntu system. However, package names and versions vary a lot between different Linux distributions and releases, thus it's impossible to give a definitive and up-to-date package list here. Please consult your distribution's documentation and package manager to find the exact package names for your system.

3. The gui toolkit may require installing the following extra dependencies

    sudo apt-get install gconf2 libnss3
   

4. Clone the Purr-Data repository (2 to 10 minutes)

    git clone https://git.purrdata.net/jwilkes/purr-data.git
   

5. Compile the code (5 minutes [light] to 1.5 hours [full])

   • to build only the core: make light (5 minutes)
   • to build the core and all externals: make all (20 minutes to 1.5 hours)
   • to build everything except Gem: make incremental (10 to 20 minutes)

6. If you're using an apt-based Linux distribution and you have the necessary Debian packaging tools installed, there should now be an installer file in the main source directory, which can be installed as usual. Otherwise, run make install to install the software, and make uninstall to remove it again.

OSX 64-bit using Homebrew

Time to build: 50 minutes to 1.5 hours
Hard drive space required: roughly 2 GB

1. Install Homebrew (15 minutes) (asks for password twice-- once for command line tools, once for homebrew)

2. Install the dependencies (10 minutes):

    brew install wget
    brew install autoconf
    brew install automake
    brew install libtool
    brew install fftw
    brew install python
    brew install lua
    brew install fluidsynth
    brew install faac
    brew install jpeg
    brew install lame
    brew install libvorbis
    brew install speex
    brew install gsl
    brew install libquicktime
    brew install sdl2
    brew install pkg-config
   

   You'll also need to install the python markdown module to generate the platform-specific release notes (ReadMe.html, Welcome.html):

    pip3 install markdown
   

   Note: Depending on your macOS and Xcode version, the 10 minutes estimate for this step may be a overly optimistic. Some build dependencies may require recompilation which can take a long time (up to several hours, if it includes a complete build of, e.g., gcc and cmake).

3. Clone the Purr-Data repository (10 minutes)

    git clone https://git.purrdata.net/jwilkes/purr-data.git
   

4. Change to the source directory

    cd purr-data
   

5. Build the OSX app and the installer disk image (.dmg file) (15 minutes)

    make
   

6. There should now be a .dmg file in your current directory, which lets you install the app in the usual way

Windows 64-bit Using msys2

Time to build: roughly 1.5 hours-- 30 minutes of this is for Gem alone
Hard drive space required to build: rougly 2.5 GB

Important note: We recommend doing the build under your msys2 home directory (usually /home/username in the msys2 shell). This directory should not have any spaces in it, which would otherwise cause trouble during the build. Never try using your Windows home directory for this purpose instead, since it will usually contain spaces, making the build fail.

1. In a browser, navigate to: https://git.purrdata.net/jwilkes/ci-runner-setup/-/raw/master/win64_install_build_deps.ps1

2. Select all with ``

3. Right-click and choose "Copy"

4. In the Start menu type PowerShell ISE and click the "Windows Powershell ISE" app that pops up.

5. In the Powershell ISE window menu, choose File -> New

6. In the area with the white background, right-click and choose "Paste"

7. Click the Run Script arrow in the toolbar (20 minutes)

8. If there were no errors in the script, msys2 and Inno Setup are now installed.

9. Open the directory "C:\msys64" and click mingw64.exe

10. Download the source code (3-6 minutes)
    In the msys terminal window, issue the following command to create a new directory "purr-data" and clone the repository to it:

    git clone https://git.purrdata.net/jwilkes/purr-data.git
    

11. Enter the source directory (less than a minute)

     cd purr-data
    

12. Finally, build Purr-Data (45-80 minutes)

     make
    

13. Look in the top level source directory and double-click the setup file to start installing Purr Data on your system or run ./"setup file name" in MSYS2 shell.

Code of Conduct

1. No sarcasm, please.
2. Don't appear to lack empathy.
3. You can't live here. If you're spending hours a day writing Purr Data code or-- worse-- spending hours a day writing emails about code that has yet to be written, you're doing it wrong.
4. If working on something for the first time, ask to be mentored.
5. If no one asked you to mentor them, don't teach.
6. It is bet