Virtual Patches Annoying Bug/Oversight

So; I’ve discovered a great new feature. I’ve also discovered a great new bug to go with it!

If you use a virtual patch in a QTZ, then save a ‘flattened’ version of the file, the virtual patch will be converted into a ‘real’ macro patch. So far, so good- you get a portable file that works fine for someone who doesn’t have your virtual patches installed on their system. The problem is, the macros automatically created this way are not correctly named. In fact, they’re all called ‘Macro Patch’. Which isn’t helpful when it comes to readability. I’ve submitted an Enhancement Request to the Apple Bug Tracker asking for the macros to be automatically named the same as the original virtual patch. Hopefully this will be incorporated into a future version of the program.

The problem isn’t by any means insurmountable- if you give the virtual patch a custom name, then that name is reflected in the macro that’s created when the flattened file is saved, so I’m not put off too much. I’m still a bit worried that since Macros can be a different size from patches, things may not line up as I’d like in my flattened QTZs, but that’s just me being excessively anal, I think. I can tidy that up before release, anyway.

In terms of working on your own stuff, I think virtual patches are probably a real time-saver, and I wish I’d discovered them earlier. At some point in the future, I’m planning to release a set of QTZs to be used as virtual patches, so that everyone can get the dubious benefit of being able to drop tb patches straight into their compositions.

Virtual Patches!

OK, you’ve probably all beed using these for ages, but for me it’s a bit of a revelation. I’d vaguely heard of Virtual Patches from the QC 3 release-notes, but I’d never really thought about using them until recently. Now I think they’re going to be verrrry useful.

Here’s the Apple documentation for them. The basic idea is that you can drop a QTZ into
/Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Patches
(a folder that will be familiar to Kineme plug-in users) and they’ll show up as patches in the Patch Creator. Any published in or out ports of the QTZ will appear as in or out ports in the patch when you create it in a composition. You can also add a description for the patch by adding it to the meta info for the virtual patch QTZ using the Edit Information item in the Editor menu.

To test out the system, I created a comp with just a number splitter, with a range set from 0 to 1 (which I use all the time), published in and out ports, added a description, and saved it into the correct folder. After restarting QC, it appeared in the Patch Creator panel, complete with description.

This is going to be very useful in the future, I think!
The only potential downside is that you have to save a ‘flattened’ version of any QTZ incorporating virtual patches, for portability. There’s a very good chance that I’m going to regularly forget to do this…