[ardour-dev] Some notes on ardour2

[Petter Sundlöf]

Here's a list of things I've noticed in using ardour2 (svn rev. 579). 
Hopefully someone can either verify or debunk my issues.

(Please forgive the length of this)

Interface nitpicks
******************

* On the first time of opening a session, one has to press Shift-M twice 
to open the Editor Mixer.

* The Session>Open dialog doesn't remember the last file system location 
visited. It should mirror the last location used in the initial Session 
Open/Create dialog, in my opinion.

* When selecting Open Session and finding an .ardour file, the user 
shouldn't have to click an additional Open button.

* Dragging the End marker should display a vertical line below extending 
from top to bottom.

* Dynamic keyboard shortcut bindings. I can't seem to make these stick. 
I input "f" in the "Follow Playhead" entry of the Transport menu, and 
when I restart it's not remembered.


Bugs?
*****

* When doing active+visible for the gain envelope the line doesn't turn 
green as in 0.99.

* Gain envelope lines display oddities:
- Two automation lines (the lower extending from the region at the left)
http://findus.dhs.org/~odd/ardour2-automation_lines_crazy.jpg
- Same issue, basically:
http://findus.dhs.org/~odd/ardour2-automation_lines_crazy2.jpg

* The zoom tool display is visually odd. If I have a session of 25 
tracks, it display the rubber band "area" in a fixed vertical length. 
The reason for this I understand; it only affects horizontal zooming. 
But if I scroll down to the lower tracks, it remains only visible on 
something like the 15 first tracks.

* Crashes open opening sessions:
"GThread-ERROR **: file gthread-posix.c: line 160 (): error 'Device or 
resource busy' during 'pthread_mutex_destroy ((pthread_mutex_t *) mutex)'
aborting...
Aborted"
I think the cause of these are known though?

* When adding groups in the Mixer window, the keyboard input focus is 
strange. Something interferes with the input of text. It seems the 
editor keyboard shortcuts might have something to do with it.

* When clicking and holding down left mouse button in the 
SMPTE/Bars:Beats field, one used to be able to move the playback cursor 
back and forth and release it where one wanted to locate to. It behaves 
very differently now, updating/moving in real-time, and seems to 
indicate backward movement even when one's locating forward on the 
transport.

* There is something in the horizontal transport scrollbar updating that 
is vastly slower than in ardour1. What this mean is that one (I) can't 
scroll and see waveforms in real-time (they appear as tiled/repeated 
chunks).

* The values for automation points can still display out-of-screen. When 
editing a value close to the extreme right hand side, the numeric value 
is invisible. It should adapt and display on the left side in this case.
If the text (black) happens to be displayed on a "full" (loud) waveform, 
it's hard to make it out against the dark grey waveform. Maybe it could 
have a white drop shadow?

Features / suggestions
********************

* The Undo/Redo entries in Edit menu of ardour1 showed the actions 
pertaining to each operation. This was very helpful to find out if one 
had accidentally nudged a region or something similar.

* The Full-screen mode for the Editor is excellent, and would be very 
nice if it was available for the Mixer as well.

* Text colours in pre- and post- fader plugin areas: The red foreground 
colours of a selected plugin is a bit confusing to me. Red signals an 
off/on state in my mind. Wouldn't it be better if it had a different 
background colour instead?

* Shortcut keys in pre- and post- fader plugin areas: In 0.99 one was 
able to Enable/Bypass plugins with Shift-Middle click. This is not 
possible anymore as far as I can tell.

* Shift+Mousewheel should modify Height in automation fields (just like 
on tracks).