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

[Aaron Carey / Pipelineaudio]

vanDongen/Gilcher <gml <at> xs4all.nl> writes:

> 
> On Tuesday 18 October 2005 08:28, AES_24_96 wrote:
> > I dont want to end up having to move two different things to make a
> > playback and zoom center position. 
> 
> Why do you need to now?
> 

How else do you place the play cursor and edit cursor, and it is impossible 
AFAIK to even have a fixed zoom center for the mouse wheel. You need to keep 
moving it so your area of interest stays centered. There is no way to place a 
cursor onto a specific area and have the mouse wheel zoom center on it, even if 
it is pushed out bounds zooming out. As it sits if you zoom back in your center 
is no longer the cursor you placed down, but is instead centered on your mouse 
cursor

> Well what you are proposing is a massive amount of work for the developers.

This I can understand, and if THAT is the issue, then fine. I will do anything 
in my power, which isnt much I admit, to lessen the load, and wait for an 
opportune time to present it.

> I 
> for one, am more interested in improving the automation editing than adding 
> an another type of edit-mode to make the transition for some new users 
> easier.

This is not the point of it at all, although it would be a byproduct of it. 
None of us digruntled windows guys mind putting in time to learn a new app. The 
issue is that as far as we have tried, there is not ONE SINGLE function which 
can be performed in Ardour than in our normal windows apps. There are some 
which are the same, but many things in ardour take magnitudes longer to 
perform. Exponentially more keystrokes and windowing. If this were a commercial 
app, making it unfriendly would be suicide, for open source, maybe it just 
makes it l33t, and maybe thats considered a good thing.
To me an app with less windowing, keystrokes and clicks is a better thing.

HOWEVER I do also understand the need to leave things as is for the original 
user base. This is why I propose a mode

> Personally I think keyboard actions are far quicker than mouse movement.

Depends on what you are doing, but for any action in Ardour it takes more of 
BOTH at all times, or at best case, the same as others

> When I am "speed-editing" I want to keep the mouse pointer near the area I am 
> working on, and control the snap-settings, the zoom, the playhead position 
> etc,etc with the keyboard, or with keyboard mouse combinations.

I can do all these things exactly in my normal apps, just with less keying, 
mouse movement, and clicking required

> I find that with the current editor I can do that, whereas with what you 
> describe I would loose certain very common actions, so that they would have 
> to be done through the context menu. I also like the fact that the playhead 
> can be set to return to its starting point whenever you press stop. And that 
> it won't jump around if you click. Basically all click actions apply to the 
> regions, the rest I can do with the keyboard. 

Which is why I propose a separate mode so as not to undo the UI that original 
users are used to


> Given the many possibilies in ardour to configure and route these things, I 
> don't see how that can possibly be enough except for the most basic case.
> How do you decide how many channels the bus has for instance.
> So adding a track or a bus will always need some dialog to give the number of 
> channels. 

Yes but nowhere near the time or effort needed in ardour right now to do them

> Same for adding a send. You have to tell the program how many channels the 
> send is, and what its destination is.
> Anyway I just tried it, and it was not time consuming at all. Two small popup 
> windows. Given that changing/modifying the routing of a session is not 
> something you do constantly, I think it is ok.

Changing/modifying the routing of a session is something we do quite often, and 
with my paradigm, it would already be handled faster anyway.

> True, and you are of course free to code the additional interface and try to 
> get it incorporated in the main code, or to release your own version of 
> ardour. It is gpl after all. :)

You gotta forgive me for being new to the open source thing. In our world, 
there are either gods, employees or users

Some app makers are Gods. Their stuff can suck uberballs, but nothing you can 
do will get them to fix it. If you dont like the app as it sits, forget it, it 
will not change and is just the pet project of someone who has never seen the 
outside world, the equipment he "models" or a place of business where his 
supposedly professional software would be used*

*excepting of course SAW, where the nutjob makes stuff for his own studio and 
allows other people to use it if they like but DO NOT blaspheme against the SAW 
god Lord Bobbus of Lentiniana

Then there are employees. These comnpanies want our money and want to please 
us. They take suggestions based on how many requests they get one way or 
another usually. Unfortunately, the number of home/hobby musician types buying 
these apps has led to completely ridiculous crap, like autoinput, no latency 
monitoring, sidechains and other audio BASICS not really making into the apps.
Many times if the success is high, the employees become gods, and no longer 
listen to the user base, except sometimes to a very few handpicked prophets. 
Many times the app can lose focus or be hijacked by another MUCH more 
profitable userbase (vegas's total hijacking by video for instance)

then we come to us the users. We learn to yell LOUD! Louder than the next guy. 
LOOK AT ME!!! Its the only way to get halfway basic features into an app. To be 
effective, it often has to border on outright mutiny, such as making separate 
forums from the company's forum to discuss the company's product. This whole 
open source, user driven thing is new to us, and remember that when we seem 
caustic.