Someday -- new interface rewrite idea

[taybrynn]

I don't know if any of you have ever seen or used the music prgram called Tracktion, but they went completely 'out of the box' and made a one-window oriented program to do music sequencing and really hit a home run with it, in my opinion. I could someday see a complete rewrite of LOR software where they could use this kind of an interface, to make things so much easier and cleaner. No more windows on windows ....

Here is a link to the product (now owned by Mackie).

http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktion3/

I'm not pushing this product so much as I'm mentioning it because of its really innovative and simple interface. LOR should hire the european guy who originally developed it to deveop their nextgen use interface -- the guy is a genius!! Seriously.

[LightORamaDan]

Different applications but I am sure we can learn somthing from it! The first thing I liked was the price. List price of $129.99 to $319.99 depending on the options you get. I like that part, perhaps we will take that as our first step.

[Tim Fischer]

My BIL was just telling me about that program over Christmas...

I'm a little confused about the "windows upon windows" comment, though. Other than the animation window, what windows do you use in the LOR sequence editor other than the main one? (especially in LOR II, where the fade/intensity levels are on a floating palette?)

-Tim

[Push Eject]

Tim Fischer wrote:

Other than the animation window, what windows do you use in the LOR sequence editor other than the main one?

Even that I don't understand as we're all running dual monitors with the animation window on one and the sequencer on the other, right?



Charlie

[LightsByGreg]

I really like the ideas here. I did see one thing that I liked and I am going to attempt to describe it in relation to LOR 2.

Where the guy had the listing of all the different tracks he used, there was a little folder tree there. So in addition to being able to scroll though tracks, we can also hit a little +/- button to expand and contract the track, so it's out of the way when we don't need it. Maybe the functionality is already there and I'm missing it.

Greg


Attached files

[bob]

LightsByGreg wrote:

Where the guy had the listing of all the different tracks he used, there was a little folder tree there. So in addition to being able to scroll though tracks, we can also hit a little +/- button to expand and contract the track, so it's out of the way when we don't need it. Maybe the functionality is already there and I'm missing it.

If you click on a track's bar (i.e. the big bar above it that says "Track 2" or something), a popup menu opens. One of the items on it is "Hide Track", which will hide the track except for the track bar itself.

To get it back, click the bar again, and select "Show Track".

[taybrynn]

Tim Fischer wrote:

I'm a little confused about the "windows upon windows" comment, though. Other than the animation window, what windows do you use in the LOR sequence editor other than the main one? (especially in LOR II, where the fade/intensity levels are on a floating palette?)

Tim,

Your right -- there really isn't a huge problem here besides the one you mentioned with the animator.

I just wanted to point out this particular program as it uses context sensitive controls so effectively -- and the singular screen interface changes its look somewhat as you do different things.

Its kind of like if every time you started your sequence, a selected portion of the animator window showed up off in a corner (always visible) ... but when you stopped, the graphic sub-window disappears and that same screen real-estate now is used for showing the tracks or whatever you were doing again before you pressed 'play'. Obivously, this could be turned on/off as a program preference.

I could also see that perhaps you program could auto-select a retangular region around the channels you are (currently) viewing (currently visible) in the editor ... and auto-focus the animator sub-window to show the portion of the animator window that covers those channels and/or tracks. I know its sounds like a pie in the sky thing and maybe it is ... but it would be cool., esp for those without two monitors.

I'm not saying this example I'm giving is a good one ... but the concept of making the interace flow depending upon what your doing (seemlessly, perhaps with options to control this for those that may not want this or that). When I've used that tracktion program ... I've found myself in awe because the program just knows what I'm doing ... and when I 'grab a hammer' ... 'the nails appear'.

Obviously I wouldn't pay $300 for all this ... but when this program was new, it was like $29.95 and did 80% of what is does today ... after Mackie bought them, the price went way up. But compared to other choices, its still cheap.

BTW, I love the multiple monitor idea. I need to do that. It would be so much easier.

I don't think you need to go and change things that people are comfortable with already ... but if we could all agree the animator window is one of the most common things we are using ... and the workflow is a little clunky ... then this is an area to potentially target for streamlining ... since its highly used and does slow you down when you toggle back and forth and move windows constantly.

[LightsByGreg]

Thanks Bob for the tip. I still would like to see a collapse button though, it would definitely save a click! Don't know if that would be too hard to do or not....

Thanks,

Greg