[ardour-users] GUI pet peeves

[Dan Tepper]

I've been playing with Ardour 2.0 beta 11.1 and it is really looking
good these days. However, I have some pet peeves with the interface
behavior.

1. Buttons (Solo, Mute, etc) highlight as if the were pressed when I
mouse over them - when I do press a button usually the highlight turns
off - only when I move the mouse off the button does the highlight
appear. this behavior is very confusing. If you are going to highlight
the buttons on flyover, it should be some different color than the
pressed or unpressed states. Better still, don't highlight the button at
all - just change the cursor to the hand over the button.

2. Fader DB settings. It is nice to be able to directly enter a db
setting in the edit window rather than having to slide the fader. This
is a feature I have really wanted to see. The problem is, the edit
interface is erratic. If i enter "2" and press return, the window will
display "1.9". If i enter "2.0" it usually works. Also, the way selected
text is highlighted rather than changing the background around selected
text is not particularly intuitive. I always have to look twice to make
sure I've selected all the text. Finally, sometimes when I hit enter,
the cursor remains in the edit window, leaving me to wonder if the
change was noticed by ardour.

3. Zoom-In, Zoom-Out and Zoom-To-Session buttons are gone. I used these
all the time to zoom around. Having to select the zoom tool or use the
menu is more time consuming, the accelerator keys are not immediately
obvious and not useful if your non-mouse hand is on your mixer or some
other device other than the computer keyboard.

4. Faders. I liked the old style faders. The new design is not as easy
to see quickly. Maybe I'll get used to it, but the older fader heads
were easier to read.

Functionally Ardour2 is working well for me, runs quite stable and fast.
I use it several hours a day in my home recording studio. I've run Sonar
and Cubase, but frankly I think Ardour is better than both of those.

-Dan Tepper