Open Lo-lo78 opened 7 months ago
We don't do horizontal movement with arrows anywhere else, dunno how intuitive that would be if it was only used in this dialog. What about Control+Tab and Control+Shift+Tab, same movement concepts as in stock multiband plug-ins?
@ScottChesworth The idea is very beautiful! If I understood correctly. In the Track Parameters it could work like this: control+tab moves to the next track with the same parameter. control+shift+tab goes to the previous track with the same parameter. If I understand correctly it's perfect! ;) 👍
Sounds good right? Only one problem, I don't know how to implement that LOL. Thoughts @jcsteh?
@ScottChesworth Let's see James if he likes the idea. I have a thought. But we might lose a feature. Switching from one parameter to another could also be useful in this window. What do you say?
@ScottChesworth Now we have 9 parameters, maybe the shortcuts could still be useful. True it seems ugly to use the arrows but would we have more functionality?
Control+tab and control+shift+tab already switch between individual parameters when focused on the slider. Feels weird to have those commands doing two different things depending on where you're focused.
@jcsteh @ScottChesworth Is it so bad to use the left and right arrows? Does it break a specific workflow for users coming to Reaper? I wouldn't want it to be like this. ;)
In a combo box, it's standard for both sets of arrow keys (up and left, down and right) to move through options. It's possible some users are using the left and right arrow keys to move through parameters, so changing that would break muscle memory.
alt+right and left arrows? This way it doesn't break the workflow. Only if you want to switch in the same parameter from track x to track y. This way, for example, you set all the volumes of all the tracks in a single turn
That wouldn't break anything, but it still feels obscure to me. Keen for @ScottChesworth's thoughts though.
It also isn't trivial to implement because the Parameters dialog effectively is just a list of parameters. Two different send volumes are just two different parameters in the list as far as OSARA is concerned. That could be changed, but I'm not sure exactly how yet.
The other thing that bothers me about this is that it's only relevant to sends. It could never apply to anything else. In contrast, the context menu is more general and can be applied to other parameters if we ever needed to add options to those.
Finally, it's worth noting that you can put "send vol" into the filter (or even just "vol") to show only send volumes or volumes in general.
I can only come up with one point of comparison for Alt left and right arrows, the JAWS scripts. For some inexplicable reason the work to move through bands with stock plug-ins was done over, they use Alt arrows for that. Hmm, the more I picture what @Lo-lo78 is asking for, the more it feels like a request for keyboard implementation in the mixer view. It's essentially navigation across strips he's been describing. So far as I know there isn't any keyboard support there yet, but there are a lot of visible controls with object navigation. Should I ask Cockos about getting keyboard support going?
I don't really know anything about the mixer view. The one thing that comes to mind is that aside from implementation complexity, one reason we didn't go for an object navigation style approach in the track view is that it's less efficient/intuitive in a lot of cases. You'd have to find ways to group things, get items and takes in there, express obscure controls that don't quite map to standard controls well, all while trying to avoid the continual interact with/stop interacting with tree navigation style approach I believe some Mac audio apps are famous for. Would the same issue exist with the mixer view or is it simpler somehow?
Somewhat separate to that, I guess the question is whether you think it makes sense to quickly navigate between sends (skipping multiple parameters at a time) in the OSARA Parameters dialog and whether it's reasonable to have "special" behaviour for sends. Given that you can filter, I'm not convinced, but I might be missing something in a real workflow of a real audio engineer :) that would make this a killer efficiency feature.
Without being a sound engineer I can say that quick navigation could help better manage the Track Parameters window. Without using objects you could now count 9 items at a time. Yes I know. It's a crude temporary solution. It may happen that other parameters are added in the future. The possibility of switching from the pan of track 2 to the pan of track 5 with 3 shortcut steps should not be underestimated. I do not know! Let's think carefully before abandoning this functionality. Maybe by keeping the arrows free the operation is normal. with a shortcut: CTRl+arrows CTRL+alt+arrows alt+arrows I understand that we need to understand the best path but the idea could be useful. Surely there is a more effective method than counting 9 steps. ;))
How often are you changing the volumes/pans for all sends at once, though? Also, as I noted above, you can filter to "pan", "vol", "send vol", etc. Even if we implement this jumping feature, you still have to get to the first send parameter you're interested in, which might be quite a few down arrow presses.
Well if there was this feature I would use it a lot. As for the 9 steps. If I'm in the parameter: Parameter: 3 guitar send source MIDI channel I would arrive at: Parameter: 7 percussion send source MIDI channel Precisely to avoid having to use too many arrows up or down to search for the parameters. It's exactly to avoid the problem of moving too much with the arrows. But I was thinking about the steps. With buses it's only 5 parameters. With spteps it is impossible to make this possibility work efficiently Sorry!
I think that we don't have to recreate all the reaper in the list of track parameters, I simply think that we could make a contextual submenu where we can put all the additional parameters that we put for that send, so as to have fewer elements to count with the arrows when let's go up, then: put volume, pan as before normally for each send, and in the submenu put those that are used less frequently, such as mono, sources, destinations, etc. In my opinion, if we also put the possibility of going to other tracks on the send parameters of a track it is as if we wanted to create a mixer inside the parameters window. I also wanted to propose that for those who, like me, have disabled the function to say the track numbers, only the names and not the track numbers were indicated in this list, as well as in the context of adding a send, thus knowing the initial letter of the name of the track I want to create a send to would be easier to reach. What do you think?
We can put simple commands in the context menu, but we can't put parameters in the context menu. It is just far too complicated, and at that point, we're basically reinventing half the routing dialog.
Please file another issue to request respecting track number reporting in the Parameters dialog. Thanks.
For adding a send, that's a REAPER context menu, not an OSARA context menu, so we have no control over how it is rendered.
I was thinking about this too, because I found that I have to listen to the track name every time I focus a send parameter. If the track has a short name it doesn't bother much. But I still think it would be nice to have a means to improve the workflow. I noticed that when entering the sends part the More button is instantiated. Perhaps you could include general send parameters in the main list, without naming the track, and instantiate another combo box to select the track to modify.
That's not possible. The More button is options for the chosen parameter. It can't access additional parameters.
Honestly, I think anything we do here is going to negatively impact someone's workflow. The most logical way to deal with this is to have a tree view. There would be a branch for sends, then inside that a branch for each track, then inside that the individual parameters for each send. But now you can't quickly jump to a send parameter by just typing the first few letters of the track, which will make things inefficient for someone else.
I was thinking that the right or left arrow keys could be used to switch from one send to another considering the parameter. Now that there are 9 parameters it would be useful to be able to move horizontally with the same parameter. It would speed up window navigation a lot. If I don't remember the track number or track name the filter may not help. Example: 2 reverb send pan right arrow key 3 Chorus send pan example 2: 3 Chorus send source MIDI channel left arrow key 2 reverb send source MIDI channel Example 3: 2 reverb send volume right arrow key 3 Volume di invio del chorus In this way we could also use the window horizontally to quickly switch from one send to another. I don't know if it's possible. Thank you!