readme.md

The Message Nodes

If you've ever wondered, if there is a smarter way to pack pins and links into some kind of "objects" in vvvv, you've come to the right place. Message is a versatile data structure made to make patching easier.

1. Have you ever had too many links in your project? So much so, as you would wanted to throw it all away and redo it?
2. Did you instead start to to Zip and Cons stuff together, and pick it apart somewhere else. But in the end, it was hell again, because all needed to line up?
3. You felt forced to add S and R nodes extensively? And finding out, the links are still there, just not visible anymore...?
4. You swamped yourself in logic, trying to get consistent states
5. Have you ever wondered, what object oriented data flows would look like, kept unfrozen?

If you answered one of the questions with yes, this pack deserves a peak, because it might help you the next time you are in that situation.

This pack is a suite of user-centered nodes to allow basic object oriented programming in good old vvvv. There are a couple essential nodes you will use a lot:

• Create (Message) Message instances from core vvvv types as inputs through named and typed pins
• Edit (Message) and Split (Message) Messages with your most common types in vvvv

Just using those alone will go a long way, when just combined with a simple HoldKeep (Message)

Once you started layouting your first pins, you might find more advanced nodes useful, because they

• help you to facilitate memory persistence through Keep Nodes
• serialize from and to Json, MsgPack and OSC
• can be used with vvvv-ZeroMQ for all networking business with Message, as the saying goes, on steroids
• allow reshaping Messages to dock one API to another

Nodes are modeled to the principle of typed fields, rapid use, resilience, and readability.

First Things First

First thing to be asked is usually: "How does it improve my patching experience". This is done by introducing a new GUI element to vvvv as an extra window. To see it yourself, install the pack, doubleclick a fresh vvvv patch and pick Create (Message). Just right-click it and you will see its pin configuration in the window popping up. This so-called Formular defines, which pins will be bundled into a Message

Double-click in the window to prepare another pin, just rename it and make sure it is checked for usage. You'll see a new pin added to the node, becoming part of the Message.

To do so, you simply type its Type and its name, separated by a whitespace. You can infuse any number of pins into one or many Messages. If you wish to create multiple Messages simultaneously with the node, just make sure your bin sizes are set correctly. To make life easier here, you can even use array syntax after the Type as in the picture.

Interfacing back to vvvv is done the exact same way by Split (Message).

It might not strike you as surprising, Edit (Message) uses the same UI to help you edit an existing Message while it passes through.

While patching along, you'll explore the dynamic approach to OOP: you can have a slightly different use for all nodes, and have to make sure you are still on the same page with every node.

Of course, this is hard on the mind, especially in larger projects that might need to be maintained for some time. So there is a different, stricter mode built into this pack, helping you to define a Formular, which acts as a kind of template for a whole bunch of nodes. This template is known across your vvvv application, so it's easy to apply the Formular to any of the mentioned nodes, and guide you to a proper object oriented data stream.

Refactoring

Using strict Formulars is a little bit like IntelliSense within vvvv.

If some time during on during your project, you decide to rename a few things, that you then know more about conceptually, you can do so safely. If a Message node detects incompatibility with an updated Formular, it will hightlight in red, so you can fix them.

After renaming it in for the Formular (Message), press Update on it, and it will attempt to "autofix" all involved nodes. Everywhere this fix would break links, it will light up in red, until you manually cleared the link situation. This "exceptional" behaviour does not induce problems to the node itself, it will be working and processing data like before, even if it rings the alarm.