Italian

Betraying the fact that Im a complete nooby, I cant even find where the damn app is installed. I´ve searched hi and low. Please help out an idiot.

vvvv hasn't to be installed in that way: just

• extract the files stored in the zip-file to a new folder
• put that folder whereever you want, name it whatever you like
• start vvvv out of this folder or
• create shortcuts to vvvv.exe and put them whereever you like

vvvv tries to register the .v4p filetype each time it starts up. It makes sense to run vvvv at least once under administrator privileges to be able to do so.

How do I close a window of vvvv? Maybe I'm not seeing some interface element as I'm using XP and some aspects of the display seem corrupted anyway.

See the main menu (middle mouse click) top left. Here are shortcuts for closing and hiding windows. Make sure you understand:

• Closing a window means deleting its associated nodes from memory (every vvindovv - except the root - has an associated node)
• Hiding a window only hides the window but keeps the node. To show a hidden window again you have to select its associated node and press the shortcut (or select the menuitem)

Is there anything like a slider or a button?

vvvv provides flexible interface elements IOBoxes that allow for the exploration of intermediary forms between buttons, sliders and diagrams, while keeping a strong focus on usability.
to create one double click the right mousebutton. hitting ctrl-i opens the inspektor window, click on the newly created box and the Inspector allows you to set all the properties of the IOBox. You can change it here to a slider, joystick, button and much more. Press F1 and look at the IOBox help to see all the posibilities.^

The custom way is patching your own buttons with geometric primitives in a Renderer (GDI) or Renderer (EX9).

Another quick method to create functional windows style interfaces is via GRIPD.

How do you get curves in the node connections (as seen in your screenshots)?

That´s an easy one. you first draw the lines as usual. then you select them and hit Ctrl+Y to toggle through 3 line-modes (bezier, segmented, normal). In the menu you should see the option on the bottom right (Alter linktype).

How can I align my nodes properly?

have you tried selecting multiple nodes and then pressing Ctrl+L? its magic.

How can I make a screenshot?

page not found

I dont have a mouse with middle mouse button. What shall I do?

if you have none, you also can use "space"+"rightclick"

My mouse-wheel doesnt do much at all. It doesnt even scroll context menus. Does my mouse have some kind of metaphysical self-realization failure?

Yes, it could be that your mouse needs a psychologist. Some mousedrivers have the option to assign the middle mousebutton to a special feature. that is evil.
If you have a middle button, but it doesn’t invoke the menu, then you might have assigned the middle mouse button to something else than the middle click (Go to Settings>Control Panel>Mouse and look for the middle button assignment to change that back to middle mouse button or similar).

How do i display .v4p files as tabs within a main patch, like in the fovball.v4p example?

What you mean is called docking windows: hold the ALT key and left Click in the window area or your window (not in the title bar) and drag the window to another one until the grey frame "snaps"

What are all the ~.xml i find in my directories?

Those are always the last saved versions of the corresponding .v4p files. a.k.a. backups. rename them to .v4p and they are as good as the orignals.

I have encountered a crash and vvvv does not start anymore.

vvvv will not start again when vvvv is already running. Try closing vvvv with the task manager before starting it again.
The commandline argument /allowmultiple allows running multiple instances.

How Do I unterstand vvvvs usage of relative paths? If i click the do read pin on the patch nothing happens, if i go inside the patch, set the path in the iobox and click the iobox for "do read" it works.

read slowy.
relative always means relative to the path of the patch the node is in.
No matter through how many subpatches a relative-path-string is handed to a node: If the node (who receives the relative-path) executes it asks: what is the path of the patch i'm sitting in? now take this to complete the relative path.
this much to 'how nodes deal with a relative paths'.
now: entering a path via a filechooser-dialog.
rightclicking on a string-pin that is waiting for a filename invokes a dialog to let you choose a file. when you hit ok with a file selected vvvv computes this files path relative to (the path of) the patch the node sits in that the string-pin belongs to.
the problem:
if a node is being fed a relative path through an inlet .. and this node sits in a patch that is not in the same path as the inlet is in (as most likely is when you are using a module) the file-dialog still computes the path relative to the patch the inlet is in.
see? hence in such a situation enter an absolute path or the correct relative path manually.

Keyboard Shortcuts

all Keyboard Shortcuts here?

• F5 flips the frame of the active window on/off doesn't work in beta8.1
• Ctrl-Tab lets you switch between different VVVV-windows

pressing Strg+F12/Strg+F11 darkens/lightens your patch (useful for boxed patches) doesn't work in beta8.1

• Ctrl+9 makes the whole Patch larger, Ctrl+0 makes the whole Patch smaller... this looks weird..... whats this?

You found it. hm.. The problem with zooming is that it will probably never really work. as you may notice a zoomed patch has some severe redraw-problems. and guess what the priority for fixing that is..

I've just seen that there is a "args.txt" file. Is this file just used for boygrouping ore are there other arguments too?

you can use /o "filename" to open simply open a file on startup
or /r "filename" to open a file as root
or define any arbitrary command switches and receive them via the Args node

I found a patch with blue nodes. How do you do this?

There are no colored nodes. What you saw are boygrouped nodes. (see boygrouping). 256 shades of gray should be enough for anybody.

When I doubleclick the patch VVVV is starting but only a blank window with no filename in the window title. When I open the patch in Notepad everything looks fine and i can not see any differences to patches that are opening.

This is a bug.
Some characters, when saved in a patch cause the file to be interpreted by vvvv´s parser as UTF-8 encoded files. Notepad sometimes decides to add characters which make it look like an UTF-8 file. Therefore files edited with Notepad might fail to load in vvvv.
Editing patch files either professional ASCII editors or the standard windows Wordpad works fine.

I just started vvvv and all the demo-files only open empty windows. What is wrong?

If you try to open vvvv directly from one of those Windows-XP zip folders, it will not work. Unpack the content of the zip and copy the vvvv_33beta folder to an ordinary directory like c:\programme\...
Do the setup again and see if that helps.

What is this vvvv fanclub page? Sometimes i see somebody logging in for seconds only before quitting again, might this be a problem of the vvvv fanclubpatch?

Hmm. Yes, it might. We actually found it better to use other software instad of vvvv. but its very nice to see that vvvv is even able to provide this!!! a freeware IRC-client and lots of information about the IRC can be found e.g. at http://www.mirc.com often very fast help by some of the vvvvdevs is provided!! we can only recommend to visit #vvvv when working with vvvv.....

I just hit Alt+3 (Hide) on my last patch, i see no way to get it visible again? Whats this?

Press Alt-R for showing the root patch. Everything is in the root even the other patches, inspectors etc. Select the patch you want to see again press Alt-1 (Window Mode)

I opened a patch with a window larger than my monitor so i cannot resize the window. What to do now?

Doubleclick (left) inside that patch and get yourself a SetPatchMode (VVVV)-node. This immediately resizes the window to a very small one which should fit to even the smallest monitors.

Where can i get more information about the GUI?

here: The User Interface in Detail