FR: Dual wielding (allow different tools on different mouse buttons)

[trance_lucent]

Would be really great to have ability to assign a different tools on a different mouse buttons. For example, left click = Select, Right click = Draw. Yes, the context menu is lost in this case, but, actually, context menu is used not very often and could be accessed from a "Menu" button on the same tools/info lane.

I am migrating from a Mac, and trying various DAW. I am frustrated by all the Windows DAW that I tried - most of them even don't allow to edit notes just with mouse without using keyboard and switching tools. Some allow draw/delete notes with mouse, but this interferes with Select and Drag and Drop features. Or you can draw/delete/select, like in MuLab and some other, but still need to use double click for drawing, which is too much efforts for such a frequent action. Dual wielding would solve this, I'd like to assign the left click to select (thus to move/copy) and the right click to draw.

Seriously, draw/select/move are the most frequently used features, why a keyboard or constant tools switching should be needed for this?

P. S. And the vertical drag while drawing would be very useful too - sometimes you can just miss the needed key, but you can hear this and move mouse a bit up/down before releasing the button.

[sl23]

Tbh, I always missed the way Muzys dealt with this. Right brings the toolbox under the cursor, select the function and it goes back to its default location.

But this sounds like a good idea too. That said, I would still prefer the Muzys method.

[trance_lucent]

I just have got the behaviour I wanted using AutoHotKey for MuLab and for some other DAWs.

I propose to try it, it is very useful. You need just to activate the Select mode, and now you can:

- Left click for selecting/moving notes (+ Ctrl to Copy)
- Right click for drawing/deleting notes
- Shift or Alt or Ctrl + Right click for the context menu.

This really saves a lot of time, all main operations are now accessible from just mouse!

The AutoHotKey script for this (works only in MuLab):

#NoEnv
#Ifwinactive ahk_exe MuLab.exe
RButton::
SendInput {Ctrl down}
SendInput {LButton down}
keywait, RButton
SendInput {LButton up}
SendInput {Ctrl up}
return
#If

[pljones]

See, I'm very much into the "standard model" of left click to select (shift for area multi-select, control for individual multi-select) or drag/drop and object and right click to get the contextual tools for that (group of) object(s)... I'm happy that a tool might need an "apply" and to have that tool be "sticky" (i.e. right click the grid, pick "insert note" tool, left click to insert note (default apply for "insert note" tool, right click may now have another menu), left click sticky and still inserts notes until I hit, for example, escape or pick "select" from the right click menu). It means I don't use the keyboard for tool handling very much (except multi-select - and even that could be a right-click tool). I do use cut-n-paste from the keyboard (so select with mouse, cut-n-paste with ctrl-c/ctrl-v), most comfortably... (Except when I'm in vi mode... then no mouse needed... )

MuLab... has lots of quirks that differ from this, basically everywhere. So I just have to know it's generally left-click something to select and then generally right-click to act on it... except when it isn't...

[lmv]

I also struggle a little with Mulab in that aspect. I always think that the correct behavior would be to *always* draw on free clicks (drawing is 90% of my action in MIDI grids), to grap and drag on click+hold existing notes (8% of my action), and only select when Shift or Ctrl is pressed. Maybe click = draw, shift+click = select, ctrl+click = delete. Just my 02 cents.