The Patcher Inspector

The Patcher Inspector

The patcher inspector lets you edit settings for a patcher window that control how it will behave when you open it. While some of the settings are similar to the patching settings in the preferences window, patcher inspector settings are applied to a single patcher document.


Viewing the Patcher Inspector

  • You open the patcher inspector window by choosing Inspector Window from the View menu when a patcher you want to edit is the active window and no object is selected.

The settings are divided into categories, each of which is associated with a category divider in the Inspector Window. Each divider contains a disclosure triangle that you can click to hide or reveal the attributes associated with the divider.

The top of the Inspector Window has four view selector tabs that allow you to view subsets of preferences that you will probably use often in addition to viewing the entire contents of the window.

Basic shows a subset of the commonly accessed preferences, organized by category.

Layout shows any layout information. No layout information is available for patcher windows.

Recent shows categories that you have recently edited.

All shows all of the settings in a single pane.


Changing the Inspector Window view

  • Click on a view selector in the Inspector Window to show a subset of all the settings. To return to the original organization of settings, click on the All tab.
  • Click on the disclosure triangle for a preferences category to hide or reveal the preferences.

Inspector Window categories

The Appearance category of the Inspector Window shows the settings associated with the patcher style. This setting can also be changed with the Format Palette in the patcher itself.

The Color category of the Inspector Window shows the color parameters you can apply to the patcher. These settings can also be changed with the Format Palette in the patcher itself. If you change any of the defult colors to a Dynamic Color, that color will change based on the theme specified in Max or Live.

The Description category of the Inspector Window lets you set descriptive information about the patcher, as well as tags and a title for use by the search system.

The Editing category allows you to set details about editing operations specific to this patcher.

The Font category of the Inspector Window shows the default font parameters you can apply to the patcher. These settings can also be changed with the Format Palette in the patcher itself.

The Snapshot category allows you to toggle snapshot autosaving.

The View category lets you set many details about how the patcher is presented to the user, including window location, toolbar pinning, scrollbar display and Presentation Mode settings.

About the Window’s columns:

The Inspector Window consists of two columns:

The Setting column has the name or a description of each patcher setting.

The Value column displays the current value associated with each setting.


Getting information about a Patcher Inspector setting

  • Position your cursor over the Setting column of any row in the window to see the setting's info button. Hover over the button to see a brief description of the setting.