[ardour-dev] Proposed editing mode, for users with heavy editing needs

[AES_24_96]

edit mode

I propose an edit mode or maybe its a mouse mode that would 
allow editing tasks to be performed with MUCH higher speed
and quite a few less keystrokes. A similar scheme has been used 
before to create an app with exponentially less clicks and 
keystrokes to perform many editing tasks than any other.

In this mode, playback cursor and edit cursor would be 
one and the same, a VERY skinny line that drops, and stays
wherever you left click the mouse in the edit window, either
on the ruler or on a region itself.

Windows type conventions would apply to the selection process.
Click a region, then shift click another region, and those two 
regions plus any region in between would be selected. click a 
region and control click another region for selecting non
contiguous regions, and keep control clicking till you have 
selected all the regions you want. Click a fader and shift click
or control click another fader to move multiple faders at once.

Simple stuff, some of which Ardour already has, m to drop a 
marker, s to split, r after making a range selection to define a
storable range. "g" groups all selected regions together, 
whether on the same track or not, u ungroups selected regions. 

Let me flesh some of these out a bit. For grouping, all grouped
tracks would be moved as one of them is, either in time or
between tracks. As groups overlap each other they would be
auto-crossfaded where relevant, according to the already
excellent Ardour autocrossfade options. Very importantly, 
there would be a "overide group" button in the Ardour menu
bar, to perform actions on regions without bothering other
regions grouped with them. Turning the button off would 
restore the group action.

Splits can be made in several ways. Clicking on a region and
hitting s will split right where the cursor sits. Clicking in a
 trackspace without a region in it, or along the ruler then hitting
 s will split all regions under the cursor. Dragging a range
along the ruler then hitting s will put a split at the very 
beginning and end of the selected range. Selected regions,
selected by click shift click and/or click control click as 
described above would also be split by hitting the s key.

Region editing would be similar to the way ardour is now.
Resize by clicking and dragging on edges (would group with
groups and selections). Control-click and drag on edges will
time stretch or time compress, also groupable with groups and     
selections. Click dragging on the top edges of either side will
 control the fade in or fade out handle, same as now. Click
 dragging on the very top middle area of a region would control
a per region volume trim. Right clicking a region will bring up 
a menu including things like reverse region, and open copy of
region in audio editor.

Mouse wheel editing would be somewhat different. With no
modifier, scrolling the wheel will zoom time in and out, 
keeping the zooming centered around the cursor. In the event
that zooming goes too far to keep centered, it will go back to
the cursor center upon zooming back in.

Snapping: Right clicking the "snap to" button brings up a speed
menu where you can select whether to snap to ruler marks 
( as defined in the ruler speed menu), time, SMPTE, 
measures, half notes, quarter notes, 8th notes, 16th notes, 
32nd notes, 64th notes and 128th notes). Holding shift while 
dragging a region overrides snapping. The "show grid" next to 
the snapping button will show a grid *VISIBLE THROUGH
REGIONS* with its points set according to the "snap to"
speed menu.

Time display: Somewhere on ardour will be a time details
screen. Top bar will show the timestamp of the beginning of a
range selection. In the event of no range selection, this will
show the timestamp at the cursor. The middle bar will show
the timestamp at the end of the range selection. The bottom 
bar will show the duration of the range selection. The main 
time display as Ardour has now can be right clicked. In the
speed menu that pops up, you can select between SMPTE,
MTC, time(hour, minutes, seconds, miliseconds), samples,
and musical time( measures, quarter notes, 8th notes, etc...).
Separately the ruler can also be right clicked to display the
same options. 

More to come, but I think with these basics ardour would be
more than workable for those of Linux Noobs us who have
been abandoned by our parent software company.

I know it sounds like a lot, but I think this would certainly
result in many fewer commands to accomplish the same
actions we have now, and actually be simpler to work with
and use.