[linux-audio-dev] Re: [ardour-dev] Proposed editing mode, for users with heavy editing needs

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. 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. 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, and keep control clicking till you have selected all the regions you want. Click a fader and shift click or control click another fader to move multiple faders at once. 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. 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. 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. 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. Dragging a range along the ruler then hitting s will put a split at the very beginning and end of the selected range. Selected regions, selected by click shift click and/or click control click as described above would also be split by hitting the s key. Region editing would be similar to the way ardour is now. Resize by clicking and dragging on edges (would group with groups and selections). Control-click and drag on edges will time stretch or time compress, also groupable with groups and selections. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. _______________________________________________ ardour-dev mailing list ardour-dev(a)lists.ardour.org