Issues with creating loop regions in the sequence editor

[muzycian]

I do understand your point, but i'm not convinced of the aesthetics.

See this image:



It looks a bit weird for me.

And what happens if you click at the left of the timebar, in that little gray area? Then it jumps to 1.0.0000? That's a bit weird too, right.

So, imagine that you just click the start locator flag to go to the start of the sequence loop.

That sounds easy and comfortable, no?

Then you don't have to fine-click anymore to go to the start of the loop, just a click on the locator flag, which is almost as big as the close button!

Then we only have 1 possible "issue": what if you want to position at "just after the start of the loop".

Well, i think that's a quite exceptional request, almost weird, no?

(and to cover even this situation, the locator flag could indeed be made a little less in height so that there is space left to click at any point in the timebar; but is this necessary?)

[fycfung]

I do understand your point, but i'm not convinced of the aesthetics.

See this image:



It looks a bit weird for me.

And what happens if you click at the left of the timebar, in that little gray area? Then it jumps to 1.0.0000? That's a bit weird too, right.

So, imagine that you just click the start locator flag to go to the start of the sequence loop.

That sounds easy and comfortable, no?

Then you don't have to fine-click anymore to go to the start of the loop, just a click on the locator flag, which is almost as big as the close button!

Then we only have 1 possible "issue": what if you want to position at "just after the start of the loop".

Well, i think that's a quite exceptional request, almost weird, no?

(and to cover even this situation, the locator flag could indeed be made a little less in height so that there is space left to click at any point in the timebar; but is this necessary?)

Hi Jo,
Thanks for putting so much effort into investigating this! In response, I would say that:

1. I lean towards making it simpler, since I tend to click my way around without really studying the manual. Anything that doesn't behave in the simplest possible way is a potential point of confusion. I still think that the timebar should allow you to click to any point (even halfway through the first segment, in the off chance that someone wants to put the position marker there) and put the position marker there, just on the principle that the position marker should function as simply as possible; this would be my main motivation for thinking that the start marker should be lowered so that there is an area above it, in which this rule still holds, just to maintain consistency of the rule. It's not so much that anyone would or would not want to make a loop right after the first note, but that any exception to the rule puts the whole rule in doubt to the newbie user, leaving the newbie a bit confused as to how exactly the whole thing is supposed to work.

2. Regarding the placement of the close button, I would suggest four possibilities.
a. Shrink the close button symmetrically, so it's walled in on both sides. Maybe have something a little fun in the dead spaces.

b. Leave the close button the same graphically, but shrink the active area a couple of pixels, so if you click right at the edge, it doesn't activate. (This is probably hard if you're using some sort of standard ActionEvent type model.)

c. Put up some ornate "thick line" between the entire keyboard/close button pane and the piano roll itself. It wouldn't have to be very wide to have the desired buffer effect. It's like that in the Composer already, right?

d. Put it on the right side instead of the left, as a little X even (which would be consistent with Windows close conventions anyway).


I think clicking to the left in the grey area just in front of the time bar, to set the position marker at the beginning is fine, personally, since I am likely to do that a lot more than I am to be closing the whole window session. But it could do nothing, just as well. What I am opposed to is that clicking in that space kills the whole window. Even if you offer this wide area where the start flagis, for clicking to set the position marker to the starting point, the upshot is that it it leads to another violation of the "simplest possible" rule, since you can't click in the "natural" place for placing the position marker at the start, rather you have learn to click somewhere else (i.e., somewhere else on the start flag).

Anyway, feel free to tell me you've had enough of discussing this, and that I'm juat being too fussy. But it seems like something that could trip up the newbie (e.g., a novice Computer Music reader) and I have a lot of sympathy for such people (being one myself).

Thanks again!

[muzycian]

So what do you think of how beta 8 behaves?

You don't have to click at the left of the timebar anymore to put the position at the start of the sequence. Just click the start flag

Regarding doing an X button at the right:

-> this doesn't go for the audio lab; want to have consistent editors.
(oh, damn, the audio lab does not yet support the locator flag click, will come)

-> It's not OSX compliant

Anyway, looking forward to your experience & feedback on the timebar/locator behaviour in beta 8.

[muzycian]

I think clicking to the left in the grey area just in front of the time bar, to set the position marker at the beginning is fine, personally, since I am likely to do that a lot more than I am to be closing the whole window session. But it could do nothing, just as well. What I am opposed to is that clicking in that space kills the whole window. Even if you offer this wide area where the start flagis, for clicking to set the position marker to the starting point, the upshot is that it it leads to another violation of the "simplest possible" rule, since you can't click in the "natural" place for placing the position marker at the start, rather you have learn to click somewhere else (i.e., somewhere else on the start flag).

To be honnest: i don't get your point here.

In beta 7, the locator flag is exactly as high as the timebar, so the natural reaction to click the timebar "in the beginning" to set the position in the beginning does work! as you automatically would hit the start locator flag.

Anyway, in beta 8, the flag is a bit less in height, so that you even have the choice of clicking the flag, or the timebar itself.

I don't see any violations of gui rules here anymore.

But do let me know if you don't agree.

What do other people think on this?

[fycfung]

I haven't gotten to play with beta 8 yet, I'll let you know what I think pretty soon.
Thanks!

[fycfung]

OK, I played with it, and allows me to get the position marker to the start without going right next to the close button, so I'm happy with it. Thanks so much for all the attention you've paid to this issue!

[fycfung]

Hi Jo,

Unfortunately, I have to take back what I said. Yes, now I can move the position marker back to the start position with the start flag like you said. But, I lost sight of my original problem: how do I make a loop that starts with the first note of the first measure? In that case, it does not suffice to click on the start flag, since I have to click and drag the position marker to make the loop.

If I open the sequence editor, the default resolution is out to about 33 measures. I estimate roughly that I have 1 pixel of leeway to start a loop at the first measure. Otherwise it starts too late, or I close the window.

I could of course blow up the magnification, but that's an additional step, which would be rendered unnecessary if the close button weren't right up against the edge.

OK, so I think I've explained my point of view in some detail in the previous messages. Perhaps I should pose it to you: what is your procedure for generation a loop that starts at the first note of the first measure?
Since I think this is a very common (perhaps the most common?) looping operation, I think it should have the cleanest operation possible, with no pitfalls, as much leeway for navigation error as possible, and without having to spend several seconds positioning the mouse at the correct pixel.

Thanks!

[muzycian]

If i want to have a loop at 1.1.0000, then i don't have to do anything as that is the default start position of the sequence!

Now let's suppose the start locator is somewhere else.

Then i only have to grab the start locator (no problem, enough pixels to grab it) and drag it fully left, to the 1.1.0000 sequence position.

So i don't see any difficulties, maybe i miss your point?

[fycfung]

I think the point is when I want to define a loop in the time bar that starts at the beginning of the sequence but ends before the end of the sequence (e.g., just the first measure of the sequence). I can't use the start locator to create that, right? Don't I need to click at the start of the loop and drag in the time bar?

Thanks!

[muzycian]

If you right-click in the timebar, then you can set the end of the loop, i.e. the "Loop" flag.

Of course, if the Loop flag is already visible, you can drag it to a new point if you want.

Does this answer your question?

[fycfung]

Aha, perhaps we have been talking past each other all this time. When I talk about setting a loop in the time bar, I have always used the grey area that you drag from left to right. That, I guess, is the "global" loop marker. The other sequence-specific "local" loop marker is the thing between the start flag and the loop flag (which I had not used until now for loops in the sequence editor). I should note that if both are set, and the overlap partially (e.g., the dark part of the time bar starts halfway between the start flag and the loop flag in the sequence editor, then the results seem somewhat unpredictable (like, when you loop multiple times, sometimes it jumps to the start flag, sometimes it jumps to the start of the dark part, and also sometimes there are hanging notes).

I think the interaction between these two needs to be clarified a bit, since the loop button always turns them both on. (That was one thing about CMuzys that I was very confused by, when it loops internally and when it loops externally). These are at least very explicit here.

Is there any way to make it so that no part of the time bar is dark? Once I select one, it seems like I can only select another one, rather than none at all.

Also, when I first go into the sequence editor from the Composer, the first time after I open a saved session, then the dark part of the time bar does not get drawn in the Sequence Editor (even it it's there in the composer), but it does affect the looping (which is a bit mysterious if the bar isn't drawn).

Thanks!

[muzycian]

The gray area in the timebar is the composition loop, and is more intended as an editing feature, so that you can repeat over a certain section of the composition.

Now imagine the composition loop is 10 bars long, from bar 5 to 15.
Imagine a part from bar 3 to 21, playing a sequence which loops from 3 to 7 (sequence time).

When the composition loops from 15 to 5, the part is 2 bars far, so the sequence starts playing from bar 5 (sequence time).

Thus the sequence then plays 5-6 - 3-4-5-6 - 3-4-5-6 and then it's time for the composition loop again.

Does this make it more clear?

[fycfung]

OK, I understand now. The sequence editor loop actually cuts the effective size of the part down so that the fully-drawn part in the Composer becomes several repetitions of that loop, which is then repeated. But, that means that the presence of the (global) Composer darkened loop in the Sequence editor is a bit misleading (at least at first), since on the one hand, in "local" time, you're repeating, but in "global" time, you're proceeding down that darkened part.

Not sure how I would handle that though, possibly have a little "global time" marker that loops along the darkened part as the long primary position marker loops between the seuqnce editor loop markers. But that's probably more effort than necessary/desired at this point.


BUG REPORT: when I tried this with the Bach composition, and I set the global loop from 5 to 15 in the composer, and the local loop from 3 to 7 in the sequence editor, then when I went all the way around in the composer, I got hanging notes again with CM-101.

Thanks for the explanation!

[muzycian]

OK, I understand now. The sequence editor loop actually cuts the effective size of the part down so that the fully-drawn part in the Composer becomes several repetitions of that loop, which is then repeated. But, that means that the presence of the (global) Composer darkened loop in the Sequence editor is a bit misleading (at least at first), since on the one hand, in "local" time, you're repeating, but in "global" time, you're proceeding down that darkened part.

You're ******* right.

To avoid such confusion, the composition loop will not be visible anymore in the sequence editor.

A click-and-drag in the sequence editor timebar will set the sequence loop, not the composition loop.

BUG REPORT: when I tried this with the Bach composition, and I set the global loop from 5 to 15 in the composer, and the local loop from 3 to 7 in the sequence editor, then when I went all the way around in the composer, I got hanging notes again with CM-101.

Improved in beta 9.