I would like to keep the perform mode in an external display and open the designer layout to change some values. Is there any method. Thank you
right-click on your perform window COMP and select âOpen as separate windowâ
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I like to map a hotkey to open a floating version of this window; you could do it pretty easily with a keyboardinDAT. I use F5 to open a floating perform window when in editor mode
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@nettoyeur @drmbt I think arunrajan is asking for the other way around: how to open the network whilst in Perform mode, without closing the Perform window. Think live bugfixes during a live performance.
I can hard relate and I would like to know the answer as well. Can TD open the designer layout without closing an already-opened Perform window, and how does this affect perform mode after closing the network again. Does doing this somehow break the magic of perform mode upon closing the network again?
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Well @matijaerceg the sole reason of existence of Perform mode is:
Perform Mode is an optimized mode for live performance that only renders a specified Window COMP. The rest of the TouchDesigner network editing interface is not rendered while in Perform Mode.
So it optimizes playback performance by disabling all UI and all features of the designer mode. So, if you want to keep editing, you need to stay in designer mode, and if you want to see your output, you need to open your Window COMP as a separate window. You can still disable the borders of the perform window and have it laid out on your specified outputs just as real perform mode does. But (if you have a heavy network), youâll notice this method has not the same performance as in perform mode, for obvious reasons 
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yes, this defeats the purpose of perform mode⌠but if for some reason you needed to open a floating network window whilst in perform mode without popping it in and out, you could make that happen via the TDFunctions module showInPane function.
For this you could map a hotkey shortcut to something like
op.TDModules.mod.TDFunctions.showInPane(op('/project1'), pane='Floating', inside=True)
to open a floating network window. You could map this to a button, a hotkey, or whatever you want to run the script
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nice one @drmbt !
So my question is: if you pop up a floating network window, and then close it, youâre back to perform mode, right? All that happened is maybe you drop a few frames while the network pane is open?
you never leave perform mode, youâre just opening a network editor pane as a floating window. All perform mode is doing is opening a floating windowCOMP pointing to a panel youâve speccâd as your perform window, while closing down the network editor that accounts for a lot of performance overhead without doing anything.
This would still give you better performance then my original response, opening a floating perform window while in editor mode, because youâre not rendering the bottom pane with the timeline and controls that always cooks while in editor mode, and the floating window wonât be considered the main pane, so closing it wonât exit your session. Its the same as right clicking on a COMP or folder in the path field at the top and hitting open floating network, which is creating a new floating instance of a panes class object, defaulting to Network Editor.
You could get more elaborate with your script; I have this functionality mapped to open a floating version of a rolledover or selected comp in my editor with ctrl.n. It calls a global helper module with a method that opens the window and turns on the parameters (like pressing âpâ) in one motion, which saves a click when Iâm trying to debug on the fly during a performance
def OpenNetwork(comp, showParameters=True, inside=False):
pane = TDF.showInPane(comp, inside=inside)
pane.showParameters = showParameters
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In your real-world experience, is this how youâve done live-bugfixes with minimal interruption to the show/performance?
in realtime performance settings, I hope to never leave perform mode, or if its something Iâm hacking together thatâs meant as a more improvisatory live node coding thing, Iâll probably never enter it. My UI these days has a custom network browser that can get me to almost anywhere Iâd need to go with a parametersCOMP in the UI, so unless i really need to hunt down something fukky, I can access it without diving into the network, but if i were live on screen and needed to troubleshoot with minimal hiccups, Iâd do this to avoid exiting perform mode. Notice i say minimal hiccups; although the overhead is lower, you are gonna spike what youâre asking it to render, and you probably will get a performance drop popping that pane open. If you keep your opviewers inactive in the network youâre browsing to, that looks like a momentary drop from 60 to like 53 frames in a relatively optimized network, and its not the end of the world.
Or just press F10âŚ
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I forget about f10 because Iâve disabled a lot of those built in hotkeys for my own key macros system, but f10 will give you the network of your rollover gadget in perform mode. which could be what you want if you store your data next to your UI. If you hit it while hovering over a network panez it sends you deep into the much of the ui panes system, which is definitely not where you want to be.
Because I try to maintain MVC with my ui stuff discrete from my logic, diving into a network with f10 wonât put me anywhere near where I want to be if I need to make an on the fly network dive from perform mode(unless I need to edit the ui element itself). Most of my UI elements have pop menues that will call my OpenNetwork function specifying where I actually want to go in my network, so Iâve opted for a more customized if not overly convoluted approach
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Thank you for all the information
Yeah for sure itâs not ideal. Also it pops up over your perform window which, if youâre âpreformingâ out to a projector or something, will show up on the projector and thatâs worse than the feed ducking out for a sec I think.
Usually the perform dialogs for me are just showing the top level âproject1â Container (aka UI stuff is in a seperate process and thatâs where all the panel COMPs end up), so F10 gets me right where I need to be, or at least close to it, and hitting âuâ a bunch will get me up there anyways.
I do like the idea of making my own set of F-Key shortcut scripts - is there a way to pop out a network editor AND choose which monitor and where on the screen it pops up? Because that would be the best option for not having to interrupt Perform mode but also not risking a network editor being sent to stage.
looks like you can define the width/height span in the createFloating function of the panes class. Perhaps an RFE for an argument to specify monitor would be a good idea, same the TDF.showInPane() method