About the M9 preferences

[sl23]

@Michael L: I had considered doing it that way, but found there to be too many categories required, often for one Pref. And still leaves the Prefs hard to find as the user will not be thinking in the specific way you do.

Also, things like...
- Auto Create Transient Markers
- Auto Snap New Audio Sequence Length

... do not need the word Auto in them, the description is completely clear without it. The whole point is to shorten the names so that Prefs are concise and easier to wade through. The more text there is, the more you need to read in order to find what you are looking for, thereby hampering workflow. You don't need to describe the Prefs function in it's title if there's a description. eg: 'DragDoubleClickDetectorMoveThreshold' is a good example where 'Drag Detection' tells you what this Pref does, the details are in the description pane. When scanning through the list of Prefs for this setting, all you're really looking for is 'Drag' as that is the issue you are trying to resolve. Many of these Prefs are the same.

This isn't about context menus, just the Prefs window.

[Michael L]

When scanning through the list of Prefs for this setting, all you're really looking for is 'Drag' as that is the issue you are trying to resolve.

I see that you and I have different use cases for Preferences!

Who wooda thot?

I set Prefs all at once and want them grouped into actions so I can see how to optimise workflows with related ones.

You use Prefs to resolve issues and thus want them grouped into keywords so you can find individual ones.

Others probably have different use cases

I don't want my way to make things difficult for others' ways

I don't have a ready answer, but one solution may be to choose category names that are used elsewhere in MuLab and thus provide context (while minimising novelty).

[sl23]

Yeah it would seem so. But I came round to your way of thinking wrt no sub-menus!

The trouble is what seems logical to one person isn't the case for someone else! I chose categories based on the simplest logic and the fact most apps I've used with decent settings forms, tend to do similar things. VLC tries to do it via usage and I find it a nightmare trying to find anything, clicking a ton of categories and sometimes finding the setting I want sometimes not.

Anyone else have any suggestions with this?

[pljones]

You've also got the problem that someone looking for a setting may not "think the MuLab way" about how to get things done. That begs the question, then, of what "the MuLab way" is... So organising things by working pattern is prone to difficulties.

[sl23]

Good point. But are you referring to my categories or Michael's or both? Do you have any suggestions about how to better organise the Prefs?

I feel mine are more generic, which was my intent, so as to be easily accessible to all, including newcomers to MuLab.

[sl23]

Any more feedback on this?

[MuTools]

If you're asking me then i can only say:

I'll certainly look at this after the M9.0 release.

[sl23]

No, I know about that, it was a general question to anyone

[MuTools]

Does anyone know what these settings are for:
AutoSnapNewAudioSequenceLength = Can't find this in the manual. Would it belong to the category 'Composer'?
AutoFocusTheModalWindow = Can't find this in the Pref's window, yet it appears in the AppPreferences.txt file. What is it and Is it still used?
MuLab8ExeFilepath = Is this required? What is it's purpose?

Note that the preference names in the Xml files are not exactly the ones you see in the preference editor.
The ones in the Xml file are the more technical names. (spaces have been removed etc)
The Xml file may also contain data that is different from the preference editor.
Please use the preference editor and focus on the names shown there.

FYI: The next M9.0.35 will include proper descriptions for these preferences:
Auto Create Transient Markers
Auto Snap New Audio Sequence Length
MuLab 8 Exe Filepath