Green and gray

If I take a simple slider control, then I make a group, in a way that it works with the value I fixed but that it is not selectable to change its value, why does the group give a green input? It should be gray.

Here is my example.

The first part you can see a Slider connected with Perlin Noise in a gray input (Scale).

The second part you see another Perlin Noise. This second time, instead of directly connecting the Slider to the Perlin Noise, I made a group using only the Slider. There are no elements that cannot be connected with the "Scale" input. But the group automatically makes a green input only, then I can't connect it to any gray input.

The point to make a group using a Slider is that, once the slider is inside a group, it doesn't appear in the settings list.

Show1.ffxml

I attach a screenshot. You see the Slider in gray, but the same Slider in a group becomes green.

"Why do you need a slider in the first place? Controls are by definition used to control filter parameters. If you don't want users to edit the parameter just don't connect any controls to it."
Some components have parameters that are not set as numeric values. While many times it is useful to use a numeric value, otherwise it is very hard to make it match with other components inside the same filter.
Then I connect a Slider or an Intslider.

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Ramlyn wrote: If I take a simple slider control, then I make a group, in a way that it works with the value I fixed but that it is not selectable to change its value, why does the group give a green input? It should be gray.

The group is green, not gray, because Filter Forge doesn't have first-class numeric (i.e. gray) components. An example of such a component would be "Add" that accepts two numeric (gray) inputs and outputs the sum of their values, via a numeric (gray) output.

Filter Forge doesn't yet have first-class numerics, because it's a very complex tasks, if we are to do them correctly. I do, however, have a working draft titled "First-Class Grays, with Scripting", which could be implemented, quote, "the ugly javascript way. Without lists, tuples and high-order functions, just weakly typed values and math. Scripting will provide Turing-completeness.".

Also, if I understood your question correctly, you want to be able to make constants, i.e. simple components that output numeric values without allowing to control them via filter controls. Is this correct?

Yes golloween1972, that's what I mean.

Sorry if I just bump problems without giving a solution.

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Ramlyn wrote: Basically, if we put together some element and we have a green output, it is fine that the group gives a green output too. But if we have a gray our blue output, if we make a group of this, it should not change to green.

Again, this is related to first-class numerics (gray components) -- which are not implemented in Filter Forge. Our current gray components are not actual components, despite looking like ones. They're just a way to control multiple inputs simultaneously. See my post above where I explained what I mean under first-class numerics.