Undo Virtual Macro?

Raconteur's picture

Hi all,

I just took a composition I created, selected all of the patches at the root level, then clicked the "Add to Library" button to create a library patch that I could share with my team.

But now I cannot seem to "undo" that. What I mean is I want to make a change to the original composition, but when I open it, I am shown a single patch with the name I gave it when adding it to the library. I cannot get back to the original composition of "atomic" patches that went into creating it.

Is there a way to do this or am I just hosed?

Also, is the "correct" way of doing this or is there a better/more-commonly-used approach?

Thanks!

Chris

cybero's picture
Re: Undo Virtual Macro?

You should look in your Graphics / Quartz Composer Patches folder for the original item and you can copy and paste that item to your desktop and edit from there.

You can edit the installed macro, but it's probably a good idea to 'sandbox' such work.

Sometimes, one finds that macros just won't work, and to be honest, I am still figuring out why that sometimes happens, although often it is pretty obvious as to what has been left unfinished and glitchy.

I do find it useful to delete the virtualPatch /name of macro information setting I'd have had to include when originally making the macro I now want to begin re-editing.

I know I can always add a new virtualPatch setting whenever I want.

You can use the Add to Library button or even place macros in your Patches folder manually they won't load though unless you restart QC when doing this IMETD.

I always find it to be essential to check and double check that the macro produced really does do what I want it to do.

A typical macro information panel below- N.B you don't always need any virtualPatches, just depends if you've employed any :-).

typical information panel for a quartz composer virtual macro

You do require a virtualPatch though & it's corresponding entry in the format shown.

It's an exceedingly good idea to populate the copyright field - even if it's just the author's name [go on - don't be shy •~], the description field - can take lots of pertinent information and the name field also. Everything else is filled automatically for you.

Finally, although the contents of the editor stage might well differ from those shown below, one thing should be true for any virtual macro, it should, nay must have published the inputs [ & outputs too] that are required for your virtual macro construct to work correctly. Oh and check and double check that it works. You know, give it some employment !

a fairly typical published port state for a quartz composer virtual macro

Raconteur's picture
Re: Undo Virtual Macro?

Ack... sorry... I am an idiot. I inadvertently saved the Virtual Macro version over the original.

cybero's picture
Re: Undo Virtual Macro?

dude - live & learn huh - do you have time machine running? - a real life saver if you can afford the disk space required for that incremental backup and a place to 'rectify' such problems - like pick and choose from the backup what you know you need the unspoilt work of.

dust's picture
Re: Undo Virtual Macro?

its ok if you saved your library macro. just go to the patch list and search for the macro you made then right click on the macro and you can choose to edit the macro which will open the original file you are looking for without having to go to ~/library/graphics/patches and manually open it. also you can choose to import or export macro from the patch creator as well. i wish you could right click on the macro to edit it but you can only right clock its name in the creator

cybero's picture
Re: Undo Virtual Macro?

Doh - your right, dust of course that should be possible - I guess I was just thinking that the worst had happened for Raconteur.