FTM provides an extended message box, the ftm.mess external. The external is very similar to the Max message box and allows for the use of FTM expressions.
The documentation of the FTM expression syntax explains the majority of what one needs to know about the FTM message box. This documentation is complemented here with explanations that directly concern the FTM message box.
Lists and inlets
As with the Max message box, one can use place holders for the arguments of incoming messages and lists with $-prefixed indices such as $1, $2, $3, etc.
FTM message boxes can have multiple inlets, whereby the indices correspond to the elements of an incoming list as well as to single values sent to the corresponding inlet.
Lists sent to another than the left most inlet will will be treated with an onset corresponding to the inlet. For example, a list of two elements sent to the third inlet will correspond to the arguments $3 and $4.
The number of inlets of the object corresponds to the maximum index used in its expression. For example an FTM message box simply containing $5 will have 5 inlets. In addition, the number of inlets can be set with the ftm.mess inspector.
To make the inlets appear, you have to delete the ftm.mess and do Undo, or copy the object. This is due to limitations in Max that doesn't allow dynamic adding of inlets to an object, only on reinstantiation of an object.
List operators
- $*: this stands for the list of all elements sent to the ftm.mess, i.e. $1 $2...
- $|: this stands for the tail of all elements sent to the ftm.mess, i.e. $2 $3...