In that post I mention the suggestion to offer keyboard shortcuts to toggle Solo, Mute and maybe even Record based on Regions / Range selections in the Editor timeline.
Currently there are keyboard shortcuts but they appear to only be “Track” box based.
So user has to click on the actual Track box to then use the keyboard shortcut which in that case seems like they would just click on the buttons themselves.
This would allow user to easily toggle these actions when working on Regions/Ranges in the Editor timeline.
I would find this very useful and am a little surprised that this is not currently available (as far as I know this is not possible?)
I was wondering if anyone else would be interested in this update as well?
Even better would be if there are any volunteer developers that would be willing to make this update mentioned?
I think what you’re asking about is having Ardour be able to sense which track the mouse pointer is over and allow the shortcuts to solo or mute that track. Is that correct?
If so, this is much like a feature called “Infix” that is available in the chip design CAD software I used in my real-life career. I can tell you that it occasionally resulted in unintentional actions that were difficult to reverse. Perhaps not so in this case. But I can say for sure that the feature was the source of many, many ever-so-passionate “religious” debates as to its usefulness.
I personally was always on the side of enabling the feature, and I can see that it would be desirable in Ardour. However I do guess that it would be a significant coding effort to implement, and might have its own set of unintended impacts.
This was the design I went for in the earliest days of Ardour development.
We moved away from it fairly quickly, and towards the single mantra “operation works on selection” (we’re not 100% there with that rule, but that is the rule).
Might be another post where there appears to be a little confusion?
I am not sure I follow.
TonyBKDE
I do not think we are speaking about the same thing, but I am not sure.
Paul
I am not sure if you are referring to TonyBKDEs assumption or my suggestion?
NEW EXAMPLE
There are 2 “Solo” based hotkeys available Toggle Solo (this is the one I am referring to in this post) Toggle Solo Isolate (not sure what this does)
-Open new session
-Drag in audio sample to create a new Audio track
-Click on Audio Track box on left side of Editor
-If you apply Toggle Solo hotkey, you will notice that that selected Audio Track box S “Solo” button gets activated.
-If you instead select the actual audio files Region in that Audio Tracks lane
-Then apply Toggle Solo hotkey, nothing happens, that Audio Track does not apply “Solo” toggle (This is what I am suggesting to be added)
SUGGESTION
I am suggesting to allow Toggle Solo hotkey to perform toggle solo action for selected Audio Tracks (which it does current) AND selected Regions (which is not currently available).
I feel this would give this hotkey more functionality.
If user is working in the Editor timeline, seems strange to have to move mouse over to the left to click on Track box to solo that track. Would be nice if hotkey would work for both selected Track Boxes + selected Regions.
Unless I am overlooking a conflict?
Again, this suggestion post is for the same behavior for all 3 Track Box buttons: Solo, Mute and Record.
OBSERVATION
If a user has to click on Audio/MIDI Track box, and then apply the available Toggle Solo hotkey to activate the S “Solo” button, to me it does not make sense because instead of clicking on the Audio Track box to select it, user could just click on the S button itself. The only use/benefit would be if multiple Track boxes are selected and then hotkey would apply to all selected Track boxes.
Subtly different, I think, but then I don’t quite understand your point under “OBSERVATION”.
Your “NEW EXAMPLE” is precisely the behavior I see in Ardour currently. The behavior I’m referring to would make the “Solo” hotkey operate on whatever track the mouse pointer is currently over, without need for an actual mouse click. I’m not necessarily advocating this behavior, only pointing out that I’ve found it quite useful in other software in the past.
The observation in your post seems to be suggesting this behavior - enable hotkey without actually clicking on the track … sorry I must be misunderstanding.
@TonyBKDE
No no need to apologize, I apologize just frustrated.
The idea you mention is not the same as what I was mentioning, but it is interesting though. Rather then having to select a region, just hover mouse over it and a shortcut would be applied.
I have used other software that uses this as well and in certain scenarios I agree with you it can be quite useful. Have not thought of it in the context of Ardour, but would work for things like solo / mute / etc. Even could work on track boxes.
Could be tricky if user needed / wanted to select multiple items to apply hotkey to.
This behavior actually also sounds like something that was brought to my attention in another post of mine not that long ago in the Right Sidebar.
How the RIght Sidebar achieves focus when the mouse is within it, which is not exactly the same, but also similar behavior.
You mentioned that you are experiencing the same behavior as my “NEW EXAMPLE” when you use something like “Solo” hotkey?
-One of the “Solo” hotkeys seems to only work when I manually select the track box
-The other “Solo” hotkey does do what I am looking for, however it automatically starts playing, which for me is not desired. Is this what you are referring to?
Or does the “Solo” hotkey you are using just toggle the track box “Solo” button, when region is selected and that hotkey is applied? Which is what I am looking to achieve.
-At the moment I cannot think if I looked up if there is a “Mute” and a “Record” (buttons in track box) hotkey that would also perform toggling of these track buttons.
I do not remember seeing any which is why I made this post, but I will test again to verify just in case.
Anyways, thank you for your responses / testing this out.
For me the “Solo” hotkey will solo a track if and only if the track is selected in the left-hand track box.
The “Solo Isolate” hotkey does not do anything. It doesn’t matter if I select a region or a track in the left-hand track box. I can RMB on the solo button in the track box and toggle the solo isolate status by clicking the check box. But I can’t toggle it with the “Solo Isolate” hotkey. I tried both selecting the track first and RMB on the solo button but can’t manage to toggle the Solo Isolate.
I’m just an amateur relatively infrequent Ardour user so I might be doing something incorrectly. If it would help I can try to post a screen recording with keypresses.