[ardour-dev] Re: [ardour-users] disappearing meters & plugins

[Paul Davis]

>On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:51:59 -0500, Paul Davis
><paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:
>> >it was working. I am BEGGING for some sort of graphic marker at
>> >automation inflection points though...
>> 
>> they will become visible when the mouse pointer enters them :)
>> 
>> 
>
>Sure, I've seen that. It's just my opinion that they need to be
>visible all the time. Just a little square box showing where they are
>so I don't have to go searching for them.
>
>It doesn't matter much when the change in slope is large, but when
>it's small and you're working at small height this is hard to find and
>grab these things. I end up thinking I've got the point, but actually
>Ardour has grabbed the line and the whole thing gets pulled up and
>down which isn't what I need to do.
>
>It would just be nice to see the data.

ah, if only you knew :)

the problem here is defining what the data is. when doing automation
recording, we record data at a very high density. even after thinning,
there is actually a lot more data than will fit on the screen unless
zoomed way, way in.

so we filter it for the screen display (which then creates one of the
hardest programming problems in all of ardour). but even when we did
that, it didn't really feel usable to me or several other people.

so for now, we are hiding even the control points we chose were
relevant to the display. this is under slow review, i don't know what
will happen in the long run.

ultimately, trying to give users what they think they want will
probably mean not doing what i currently think we really should. it
will mean doing straight-line approximations, and eliminating points
that are a certain distance from the line. fine tuning the
approximation and elimination thresholds will be tricky and time
consuming, i am sure.

--p