Wire: Feature suggestion: Passive visual node grouping nestable container with name/title for easier patch management

"Where is Feature X? I need Feature X! How can you not have Feature X?"
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Do you want (irrespective of sub-patching) passive node grouping containers with a name/title?

yes (I like well organised patches)
3
100%
no (I prefer unwieldy patches)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 3

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webel
Hasn't felt like this about software in a long time
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Wire: Feature suggestion: Passive visual node grouping nestable container with name/title for easier patch management

Post by webel »

This in part a way of addressing shorter-term the current lack of sub-patching support, but has standalone value in managing complex patches, and can also serve as a way of identifying (ear marking) collaborating nodes as candidates for sub-patching.

It would be really convenient to be able to visually and graphically contain patch nodes in a completely passive (parasitic) container box with a name/title. To move the nodes, one would simply move that container box. The name can serve to identify the collaborating role of the contained nodes.

The container would not itself have inlets/outlets (ports), and would not participate in signal transfer.

Longer term, users could then choose to sub-patch such a container from a context menu item (promote a candidate group of nodes that perform some well defined collaboration to achieve a goal/idiom).

It should also please (this is very important) by nestable! It should be possible to have sub-groups of nodes within a parent group, and so on.

Some Wire example patches show a Comment, without any actual grouping of nodes, just as a visual indicator behind the visually "contained" nodes. This is completely inadequate.

2023-03-17 18-11-24  PLAY-CrowMagnum-character-4K-walk-perlin-01 (Edited) .png
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Related: Wire: Desperately needs sub-patching (reuse of groups of nodes in another context with inlets and outlets)
Darren Kelly (PLAYlogo), Webel IT Australia

JBroadway
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
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Re: Wire: Feature suggestion: Passive visual node grouping nestable container with name/title for easier patch managemen

Post by JBroadway »

+1 for this.
I'm new to Resolume and Wire and I just finished my first patch. I was kind of just expecting that I'd be able to compile it into a single node and use it across different projects since merging nodes together is pretty standard for node based workflow programs.

I was hoping I could save my patch and just search for it in the search bar
Image

I naively assumed that that's what 'compiling' was for. So I was a bit surprised when I compiled my patch, dragged the .cwire file into Wire and it crashed the program.
After a bit of Googling and digging through these forums, I come to find it's not a feature :(

Anyways, does anyone know when sub-patching is going to be added?
I noticed Bart mentioned it's going to be coming and that it's high on the priority list. That was about a year ago. It would be cool to hear a status update if any Wire devs are reading this.
Source: viewtopic.php?p=86098#p86098
bart wrote: Thu Jan 12, 2023 10:20 Thank you for all your valuable feedback webel! Super helpful. Subpatching is definitely coming, we cdo nog yet know when yet because it’s a huge feature but it’s very high on our list.
Wire is a very powerful program, and I can see it becoming a big part of my creative workflow, although there appears to be many critical features (like sub-patching) that are missing that's severely limit its functionality.

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webel
Hasn't felt like this about software in a long time
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Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2022 03:49
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Wire: Feature suggestion: Passive visual node grouping nestable container with name/title for easier patch managemen

Post by webel »

@JBroadway I really appreciate your sensible observations on this topic:
I was kind of just expecting that I'd be able to compile it into a single node and use it across different projects since merging nodes together is pretty standard for node based workflow programs.
Exactly. And it isn't just a "feature", it is a fundamental part of the patch-based processing architecture that needed to be foreseen from Day0 of the development of Wire and included in the node (channel operator) transfer design. Wire has great potential that can only be fully realised with sub-patching.

Calling all current and potential Wire users. Vote for sub-patching!


If you haven't already, please vote for sub-patching here. As of the time of writing, there are 7 votes for it. Resolume as a company does great work, and the development priorities w.r.t. customer wishes are ultimately their business decision, however I strongly suspect that many other potential Wire customers are simply going elsewhere once they learn sub-patching is not yet supported, rather than voting on a forum for a capability they'd realistically expect would already be supported (that is, there may be a strong selection effect in those Votes).

I have a lot of experience with various patch-based programming environments, and once sub-patching is implemented, I can do a lot to help promote Wire (an older version of which I use heavily). Until then, I simply can't promote it.

In any case, even the logical grouping container I suggested here would help a bit, and as I remarked, it could be used as a "staging" system to identify candidates for sub-patching with the ability to reuse ones composite transfer nodes from one's own custom library in other patches.
Darren Kelly (PLAYlogo), Webel IT Australia

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