Pd Manual

This is the Manual for Pd, a patchable environment for audio analysis, synthesis, and processing, with a rich set of multimedia capabilities. The latest version of this page can be found at: http://msp.ucsd.edu/software.html.

1. introduction
   1. guide to the documentation
   2. other resources
2. theory of operation
   1. overview
      1. main window, canvases, and printout
      2. object boxes
      3. message and GUI boxes
      4. patches and files
   2. how to edit patches
      1. edit and run mode
      2. creating boxes
      3. the selection
      4. deleting, cutting, and pasting
      5. changing the text
      6. connecting and disconnecting boxes
      7. properties and help
   3. messages
      1. anatomy of a message
      2. depth first message passing
      3. hot and cold inlets and right to left outlet order
      4. message boxes
   4. audio signals
      1. sample rate and format
      2. tilde objects and audio connections
      3. converting to and from messages
      4. switching and blocking
      5. nonlocal signal connections
   5. scheduling
      1. audio and messages
      2. computation load
      3. determinism
   6. semantics
      1. creation of objects
      2. persistence of data
      3. message passing
      4. inlets and lists
      5. dollar signs
   7. subpatches
      1. abstractions
      2. graph-on-parent subpatches
   8. numeric arrays
   9. data structures
      1. traversal
      2. accessing and changing data
      3. editing
      4. limitations
3. getting Pd to run
   1. audio and MIDI
   2. installing Pd in Microsoft Windows
   3. installing Pd in Linux
   4. installing Pd in MacOS X
   5. preferences and startup options
   6. how Pd searches for files
4. externals
   1. external objects & libraries
      1. what are: vanilla objects, internals & externals?
      2. what are the types of external objects?
         1. compiled objects:
         2. abstractions:
      3. what are external libraries?
      4. what are the types of external libraries?
   2. installing external objects and libraries
      1. where to include the externals?
      2. how to download externals from Pd vanilla?
   3. loading externals
      1. load using the [declare] object
         1. [declare -path]
         2. [declare -lib]
      2. load via path and startup
         1. user added path
         2. startup
      3. load using slash declarations
   4. how externs are loaded
5. current status
   1. release notes
   2. known bugs
   3. differences from Max/MSP
6. installing from source
   1. requirements
   2. autotools build (recommended)
   3. Linux & BSD
   4. macOS
      1. macOS resources
   5. Windows
      1. Windows resources
      2. Windows ASIO support
   6. double precision
   7. other flags
   8. cross-compilation for Windows on Linux
   9. makefile build
   10. reporting bugs