panel CHOP in window COMP/instant messenger

I’m trying to build a simple instant messaging application using text DATs and touch in/out DATs. There are a lot of questions I have, but hopefully answering just a few will get me going.

First of all, I’m trying to put a text DAT and a panel CHOP in a window COMP, so I can write a message, and then hit “enter” to send that message off instead of having to click outside of the text DAT for it to update. I know I can use the panel CHOP to do something with the “enter” key, but right now I can’t even get a panel CHOP to be happy inside a window COMP, it keeps giving me a bad path or syntax error when I try to reference it. Why can’t it sit in a window COMP? How might I bring these two elements together?

Eventually I’d like to have the message history on the left, and a typing area on the right, which brings me to my next question: how do I copy or amend the contents of a text DAT? For example, whenever a message arrives at the touchin DAT, I want a script to run that will take that text and amend it to a text DAT inside of a window.

I’ve been away from TD for about 5 months, so getting back to it is a really tedious process, but I really want to make this work. I’m writing this application for a theater I work at, primarily so the FOH mixer doesn’t have to get on headset all the time.

Have you thought of using a Field COMP for entering the text. Then you can monitor the DAT inside for changes and run a callback script when the contents change.

You can also monitor the Touch In DAT or other DAT with messages streaming in in the same way, running a python callback to then do something with the text or move it somewhere else.

A DAT Execute DAT would work for both these cases.

Check out the python help for the DAT Class, or the specific DAT operator you are using ie Table DAT/Text DAT to find the python you need to edit contents.