change hightlighted clip slot

Using the highlighted clip slot seems easier and more natural than creating a scene box that is 1,1. In particular, most of the things I want to do - like add clip and delete clip and fire - are naturally on a single clip.

Thus it is really nice to:
self.song().view.highlighted_clip_slot.fire()
which also works groove with delete_clip(), and between fire (in toggle mode) and delete I don't need much more for live performance.

I've also figured out how to set the highlighted clip slot with an absolute value:


self.song().view.highlighted_clip_slot = self.song().view.selected_track.clip_slots[1]


sets it to the second slot (0 index of course)

To fully generalize it, though, I'd want a button to move to the next or previous one. Then I can fire and delete to my heart's content.

I've tried doing things like using a global variable, but that doesn't seem to work - how might I create a variable across invocations? I could maybe hang it off self....


global bb_slot
bb_slot = bb_slot + 1
self.song().view.highlighted_clip_slot = self.song().view.selected_track.clip_slots[ bb_slot ]


I notice the MAX documentation of the LOM states there is an id on every object. The right idea, is probably to iterate through the clip_slots to find which id matches, then I can find the index I am currently at, then I can set to the next one.


self.song().view.highlighted_clip_slot = self.song().view.highlighted_clip_slot.id - 1


but that didn't work either.

I'd love the following:

An example of how to print things. I know there is a message thing, but the messages aren't super clear about whether you need to fully cast to a str as well as enclosing in " ".

A discussion of creating global variables

how to move the highlighted clip slot

Thanks in advance
-brian