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

[vanDongen/Gilcher]

I am sending a copy to ardour-users, since the discusion is about useability.


On Monday 17 October 2005 09:24, AES_24_96 wrote:
> 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.
>

There are some good ideas in this proposal, but it also seems that you are 
unaware of a lot the shortcuts and modes allready present in Ardour.
Look at http://www.ardour.org/manual
And especially the part on keyboard and mouse bindings.
There is also a large number of people who are (used to) working on Macs who 
have a different idea of the conventions.


> 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.
>
I agree that the playback and edit cursor could appear thinner. But are you 
aware that pressing p will place the playhead and pressing e will place the 
edit cursor on the mouse position.


> 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, 

For continous selecion use rubberband selection. I you start outside of an 
audio region click drag will automatically give you a selection rectangle.
To start a rubberband selection inside a region use ctrl-alt-click drag.


> Click a fader and shift click
> or control click another fader to move multiple faders at once.
>
This is a good idea, in some form or another. Maybe the mixer-strip selection 
can form a temporary mix group.
Select multiple mixer strips and all actions are taken on all selected


> 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.
>

Not sure what you mean. A selection of regions allready act as a single thing 
for almost all operations on a single region of the selection. As I am trying 
this out, I see that there are some bugs here, but the basic functionality is 
there.



> 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. 
Already implemented.


> 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.
>
Ok, this is different. Right now you have to unselect. What you want is a more 
like a named and persisten selection. That could a good feature. Maybe the 
chunks can be fleshed out a bit to work more in this direction.


> 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.

Alt-s will split selected regions at the editcursor


>  Dragging a range 
> along the ruler then hitting s will put a split at the very
> beginning and end of the selected range.

In range mode there is already the context menu action "seperate region".
This will work for a range across multiple tracks.
alt-click inside a range will make a new region of the range on top of the 
underlying (bigger) region, but only works for the region the mouse is on. 
This is a bug I think.


> Region editing would be similar to the way ardour is now.
> Resize by clicking and dragging on edges (would group with
> groups and selections).
 The resize bar at the bottom of the regions works like that.
You can also directly click on it to trim without dragging.


> Control-click and drag on edges will 
> time stretch or time compress, also groupable with groups and
> selections.

Timefx mode is a single keystroke away.

> 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.

Have a look at the context menu that is already there.
And have a look at gain mode. In ardour you can create independent gain 
envelopes per region.

>
> 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.
>
Right now you have to switch to zoom mode , also a single keystroke for the 
wheel to work like that.
You can also directly drag or wheel in the zoom-range clock to set.
The zoom focus can be set by keyboard shortcuts,  the default is that only the 
playhead focus is bound.






> 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.
>
There is the little downward arrow at the side of the snapsettings that brings 
up exactly this.
The ignore snap key is defined in the options under keyboard/mouse, defaulting 
to mod3. You can set it to shift if you want. 


> 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.
>
The only thing missing is the range start and end clock.
Everything else is already implemented. Right click in the area to the left of 
the rulers to select which rulers to show. Right click on any of the clocks 
to select to type of time display. The main problem is a layout/screen 
real-estate one I think.

> 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.
>

Basically a lot can be learned from reading the manual and trying things out.
A rude person would say RTFM.
But the response would be, sure but make the manual accurate and complete.

cheers 

Gerard