OSC Message "Address" property

[edmundchong]

Hi, I am having difficulty setting the "Address" property of OSC.ReceiveMessage or OSC.SendMessage as an externalised property. I run into the same issues that others report elsewhere with the Filename property of some Writer--the value is only updated after restarting Bonsai:

https://github.com/orgs/bonsai-rx/discussions/2307
https://github.com/orgs/bonsai-rx/discussions/1367
https://groups.google.com/g/bonsai-users/c/lEj2W_5qgfQ/m/M_hXa_OkAAAJ

I am not sure, but think I have followed the suggested solutions, but still no luck. Here are some things I tried which I thought would avoid the issues described above:

attempt 1: only subscribe to ReceiveMessage after some time
attempt 2: only launch ReceiveMessage from a SelectMany, after some time

Neither works. Am I missing something, or does the Address property behave differently? :)

code

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <WorkflowBuilder Version="2.8.5" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:osc="clr-namespace:Bonsai.Osc;assembly=Bonsai.Osc" xmlns:wie="clr-namespace:Bonsai.Windows.Input;assembly=Bonsai.Windows.Input" xmlns:rx="clr-namespace:Bonsai.Reactive;assembly=Bonsai.Core" xmlns="https://bonsai-rx.org/2018/workflow"> <Workflow> <Nodes> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="osc:CreateUdpClient"> <osc:Name>udp_host</osc:Name> <osc:Port>8000</osc:Port> <osc:RemotePort>0</osc:RemotePort> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="osc:CreateUdpClient"> <osc:Name>udp_client</osc:Name> <osc:Port>0</osc:Port> <osc:RemoteHostName>localhost</osc:RemoteHostName> <osc:RemotePort>8000</osc:RemotePort> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="wie:KeyDown"> <wie:Filter>B</wie:Filter> <wie:SuppressRepetitions>true</wie:SuppressRepetitions> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="StringProperty"> <Value>j</Value> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="osc:SendMessage"> <osc:Connection>udp_client</osc:Connection> <osc:Address>/</osc:Address> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="StringProperty"> <Value>/</Value> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="PropertyMapping"> <PropertyMappings> <Property Name="Address" /> </PropertyMappings> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="osc:ReceiveMessage"> <osc:Address>/</osc:Address> <osc:TypeTag>s</osc:TypeTag> <osc:Connection>udp_host</osc:Connection> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="wie:KeyDown"> <wie:Filter>S</wie:Filter> <wie:SuppressRepetitions>true</wie:SuppressRepetitions> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="rx:SubscribeWhen" /> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="wie:KeyDown"> <wie:Filter>S</wie:Filter> <wie:SuppressRepetitions>true</wie:SuppressRepetitions> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="rx:Take"> <rx:Count>1</rx:Count> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="Combinator"> <Combinator xsi:type="StringProperty"> <Value>/</Value> </Combinator> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="PropertyMapping"> <PropertyMappings> <Property Name="Address" /> </PropertyMappings> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="rx:SelectMany"> <Workflow> <Nodes> <Expression xsi:type="ExternalizedMapping"> <Property Name="Address" /> </Expression> <Expression xsi:type="osc:ReceiveMessage"> <osc:Address>/</osc:Address> <osc:TypeTag>s</osc:TypeTag> <osc:Connection>udp_host</osc:Connection> </Expression> </Nodes> <Edges> <Edge From="0" To="1" Label="Source1" /> </Edges> </Workflow> </Expression> </Nodes> <Edges> <Edge From="2" To="3" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="3" To="4" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="5" To="6" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="6" To="7" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="7" To="9" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="8" To="9" Label="Source2" /> <Edge From="10" To="11" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="11" To="14" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="12" To="13" Label="Source1" /> <Edge From="13" To="14" Label="Source2" /> </Edges> </Workflow> </WorkflowBuilder>

[bruno-f-cruz]

I would say that, currently, there are 3 distinct patterns regarding property initialization used in Bonsai. For the most part, there is no indication of how these properties behave from the point of view of the editor and the easiest way to figure it out is to take a quick look into the source code:

1. Dynamic properties (e.g. Multiply's value) - These are the properties you probably the most used to. They can be changed at runtime and will alter the behavior of the operator on the next event.
2. Properties set on subscription (e.g. Timer's DueTime or CsvWriter's FilePath) - These are properties that must be set BEFORE subscription occurs. Once subscription takes place, the value of the property is used and further changes will produce no further effect.
3. Properties set at compile-time (e.g. Subject names) - These are properties that are used during compile time and whose changes will not affect workflow behavior during runtime. It should be noted that these properties can still be made dynamic by setting them via the CLI.

I believe SendMessage belongs to type 3.

[edmundchong]

Thanks Bruno! Added a comment to include this information, for related issue raised on the Bonsai docs repository
bonsai-rx/docs#138