Hi there! We're delighted that you'd like to contribute to this project. It has been generous collaboration from many people all over the world that has made it possible so far, and your help is key to keeping it great.
First of all, we would love to hear from you! We have no way of knowing who has discovered, explored, downloaded and tried the Beat Link integration for Max. So if you have, please write a quick note on the Beat Link Trigger Zulip channel to let us know! Even if it is only to explain why it didn’t quite work for you.
Contributions to this project are released to the public under the project's open source license.
This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code.
Before you can start contributing to Beat Link Max, you'll need to set up your environment first. Fork and clone the repo and install Maven to install the project dependencies and manage builds. We find IntelliJ IDEA (even the free Community Edition) an incredibly productive environment for Java work, but use whatever IDE or editor works best for you (we always have GNU Emacs open too).
Compilation also relies on the file max.jar which ships with Max,
but is not published to Maven Central or anywhere else, and we can't
redistribute it ourselves. So you will need to install a copy in your
local Maven repository, under the groupId local, artifactId
max, and version 0.9.
-
First, find your copy of the file. In the macOS version of Max, you need to look inside the application bundle itself. Right-click on the application in the Finder, and choose Show Package Contents. This will open it as a folder, and you can find the file at
Max.app/Contents/Resources/C74/packages/max-mxj/java-classes/lib/max.jar. The mxj tutorial inside Max says that on Windows machines the file can be found at\Program Files\Common Files\Cycling '74\java\lib\max.jar, but I can't verify if this information is current. -
Open a terminal and
cdinto the same directory that containsmax.jar, and issue the following command to install it in the right place in your local Maven repository:mvn install:install-file -Dfile=max.jar -DgroupId=local -DartifactId=max -Dversion=0.9 -Dpackaging=jar
Once this is all in place, you can run mvn package. That will
create target/beat-link-max-0.1.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar
which is the compiled code, including all the libraries it needs.
(The version number will vary depending on the version you are
working on.)
Copy that to MaxPackage/beat-link-max/java-classes/lib/beat-link-max.jar,
and then copy MaxPackage/beat-link-max, which is the Max package, to the Max
Packages folder as described in the Installation section of the
Read Me.
💡 You can also create an alias of the
MaxPackage/beat-link-maxfolder inside your Max Packages folder to avoid having to copy it from the repository every time you want to use an updated version in Max. The compiled jar file is set up to be ignored by git. This makes working from source much more convenient.
When sharing the package online, Zip up the MaxPackage/beat-link-max
folder, and share that. In addition to the code itself, it includes the
description, documentation, help files, and so on, that teach people how
to use it.
For testing you are going to want some Pro DJ Link hardware on your network, and a wired network is necessary for realistic performance. If you will be trying to analyze the protocols, you will probably want to invest in an inexpensive managed switch, to let you span (mirror) ports, so you can listen in on the traffic players and mixers send between themselves. The Netgear GS105Ev2 has worked great for us.
Once you have something working you’d like to share, you can open a pull request. It’d probably be a good idea before you get to that point to get some feedback on what you’ve been doing through the Beat Link Trigger Zulip channel.
Or if you simply have an idea, or something that you wish worked differently, feel free to discuss it on the Beat Link Trigger Zulip channel, and if directed to do so by the community there, open an issue.
Beat Link is primarily maintained by @brunchboy.
Copyright © 2024 Deep Symmetry, LLC
Distributed under the Eclipse Public License 2.0. By using this software in any fashion, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms of this license. You must not remove this notice, or any other, from this software. A copy of the license can be found in LICENSE.md within this project.