About the Lobjects: an FAQ
Answered by Peter Elsea, elsea@ucsc.edu

What are Lobjects?
Lobjects are extensions to the Max/MSP interactive music environment. They supply
missing features, such as the ability to locate transitions from 0 to 1 in a long list.

Who wrote the Lobjects?
They are written by Peter Elsea, Director of the Electronic Music Program
at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

How many are there?
There are about 125 of them, if you count objects made obsolete
by expansion of Max itself.

How do I get them?
They have been freely distributed on the web since 1994. 
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/ems/ftp_files_ems/Lobjects

What platforms are supported?
Lobjects are developed and initially distributed on Macintosh. 
The most popular are recompiled for Windows- if you need one converted, drop me a line.
The 06 package is Universal Binary, and all but 2 work in Max 5. (Lgrid and Lmap don't 
but should be converted soon.)

Will any be added soon, and if so can I make a suggestion?
My duties at UCSC have prevented me from doing any serious development, the occasional bug fix is about it. However I will be retiring in the middle of 2013, and expect to return to coding after that. So send those suggestions in.

Why do some objects duplicate the function of Max internals?
Usually, because I thought of it first. As Max has been developed and expanded over the years,
objects such as loadmess (lbang) have been added to the standard set. I am happy to see this as
I plan to retire eventually. The old objects remain in the set for compatibility of
long standing patches, but they will be marked as depreciated in the documentation. In
some cases, my versions have extra features. Lcatch is different from quickthresh.

Do lobjects support long lists?
The current crop is Max 4 compatible, meaning lists are limited to 256 items. when I do maintenance on one I increase list size.
All will be expanded eventually.

Do you do custom objects?
Yes, as time permits. Again, drop me a line. Unfortunately, there seems to be 
less time around than there used to be, and the  change to Max 5 requires some
extra work. But nearly a third of the set came from suggestions by Max users.

Can I distribute Lobjects in my stand alone application?
Yes, provided you include the license text at the end of this page. The rights are owned 
by my employer, the University of California, but they are distributed under the
BSD open source license. A copyright notice will appear discretely in the Max window
when the application launches. If you are making money, please consider making a donation.

Is the source code available?
Yes, on the same site. I make no claims as to the efficiency or elegance of
the code, but it works. Some aspects may seem rather odd- they are leftovers
from the early days when the object API was quite different.

How can I Support the Further Development of Lobjects?
By making a donation to the Jeffrey Knight Electronic Music Fund at UC Santa Cruz.
You can make your contribution on line by going to 
http://giving.ucsc.edu 
with a comment directing the gift to MU003F
We appreciate your support!


Lobjects are Copyright © Peter Elsea and The Regents of the University of California
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