Waveform 14 released.

[Watchful]

I think a lot of people had ideas for improving the properties panel and making it even better, but I’ve never seen someone ask it removed entirely.

I suspect it was more a case of "Have you checked the Properties panel?" "Ugh, no. I hate having to check that for everything." "Okay, we hear that a lot. We'll get rid of it."

[talby]

(...) a lot of function is retained in the actions panel so I’ll give it grace and try to get used to the change

I think there was no intend to remove any functionality. If a function would be missing, then because it simply was forgotten to make it accessible elsewhere, and then the best way to get this fixed is by reporting it! The devs are not following this forum. We are directed here to be in a user-to-user forum. So, reporting issues is the only way to get noticed.

[talby]

I think a lot of people had ideas for improving the properties panel and making it even better, but I’ve never seen someone ask it removed entirely.

I suspect it was more a case of "Have you checked the Properties panel?" "Ugh, no. I hate having to check that for everything." "Okay, we hear that a lot. We'll get rid of it."

I remember a comment saying that the issue with the Properties panel was its fundamental design. For the many more features of today there was no more place in it to get more information or functionality into it.
On the other hand, the Actions panel was introduced years ago. So, nothing really new. And it had the potential to become improved by possibly much more reasonable efforts.

So, they decided to strengthen this Actions panel significantly, instead of getting stuck with a reconstruction of the Properties panel.
I personally think this was a very good decision.
But as unfortunately so many times, they failed to communicate their intentions properly to their customers and now receive harsh feedback.

Yes, the Properties panel always was a "Useful panel". But the truth it, it wasn't perfect.
It was criticized that in the Actions panel identical items are found jumping around in their location on the screen, which is a consequence of that list of available actions being filled context sensitive and in consequence showing different lists for different items. However, in the Properties panel the items in there also jumped around, sometimes an identical function showed up in the left column of the Properties panel, sometimes in the right column of it, sometimes at different height, and sometimes not at all.

Long term users might not have noticed this, having grown up with this Properties panel and having the location of its various items in the various context strongly in muscle memory.
I am not such long time user of Waveform, only 3 years now, and I still struggled to find the momentary location of items in the Properties panel.

So, what's the real difference for users like me? Have all items of interest in a list at the side and this being a list which can easily elongate if necessary, instead of having a limited number of items in tiny, less flexible columns at the bottom!
Any real loss? Yes, I am missing the nicely long level meter which could be shown long like this in the Properties panel.
Workarounds? Yes, when indeed in need of a really long level meter, then I now place a plugin showing such meter vertically from the bottom to the top of the screen, and this plugin window I can move easily where ever I want it to stay. In the end, the meter which I was forced to find is even more complete. Eventually, very nice that I was pushed to find this plugin.
Any win? Yes, instead of having one Properties panel, I now have various Action panels which I can use in parallel, one can be locked to an item, the other stays context sensitive, three levels of favorites from which two of them can be in use in parallel (use the Actions panel accessible at the bottom for this).

If improving the Properties panel would not only be complicated on top of the established code base, but also provoke mayor design problems because the Properties panel would need some scrolling feature in order to become able to contain more items and be future ready, then this has to be faced.
I imagine that deciding on a solutuion wasn't any easy decision for Tracktion at all. But if you get stuck somewhere, then you have to consider alternative paths. So they did.

[Watchful]

Really good comments, Talby.

[dysjoint]

I'm also missing the level meter that was viewable by selecting the track level meter which would then be displayed much larger in the properties panel (and could be locked so I could continue working and still have the meter visible)
This is an actual loss of functionality.

Talby, which plugin are you using to workaround this issue? Although I think Waveforms offerings in the metering department are rudimentary at best by modern standards and would probably be a worthy feature request.

[talby]

LUFS
For simple but full height visual monitoring I use "Loudness" from this site:
https://minimeters.app/
It is available as a VST3 or CLAP plugin in the DEMO download. If you only need this, and none of the other plugins from that suite, then the DEMO version of the "Loudness" plugin is exactly what the same simple you would get in the purchased version. So, the purchased version brings absolute no extra in the "Loudness" plugin, by now.
The point is, it only shows some (not all) LUFS, and RMS, but no PEAKS, and not marking max values which have been hit. It's not fancy looking either, but who cares if it does its job. Saying this, it does a simple and efficient job. After Waveform unfortunately does again in WF14 not offer any LUFS meter, this plugin comes handy. I then prefer to show with it the LUFS in "Mode = short" interval analysis (you can select it in its Settings menu at the bottom, just make the Settings menu visible first). This nicely reflects what I hear, and thus visually supports my hearing.
As a LUFS meter it of course does not reflect what technically could be of importance (true peaks).

PEAK, for Waveform on Linux
For monitoring the PEAK and TRUE PEAK values, having markers which stick at reached max values,
I use "K-Meter" from this site:
https://github.com/mzuther/K-Meter
"Implementation of a K-System meter according to Bob Katz' specifications.", from Martin Zuther, 2020, VST2, v2.8.2
Peaks, True Peaks, RMS, sticky max value markers, this is all also available in Waveform, and I am not a fan of the K-metering idea. And I cannot make this plugin stretch to full screen height. Still, it is much longer in height than what you now get in W14 by Waveform intrinsic meters, and this is exactly why I use it (the settings for a normal (not K-meter stretched) scale are: Normal + RMS + Hold + Peaks).

PEAK, for Waveform on Win and Mac:
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/products/bx_meter
Looks similar to the Linux plugin from Martin Zuther.
I have no personal experience with Win and Mac, but would expect that this (also free) version from a well known mayor plugin house is as good as the Linux work from Martin Zuther.

I am open for alternative suggestions for such plugins which run natively in Linux!