Top 3 SMALL but HUGELY helpful changes/additions (not fixes) you wish to see in X3.5-X4

X3 is a great daw for many (including me) but there's definitely still room for improvement in terms of usability. If you feel the same way, why not post your wishes here (up to 3 if possible, not to bore the reader) for small things that would be of huge help in your daily use of Sonar. Who knows? You might receive great advice or workarounds, or maybe they’re already possible in X3.
             
I've submitted quite a few feature requests in the past 12 months, about CV to PRV to Control Bar to some other areas, but looking back all the requests submitted, I think I can say that my top 3 inconveniences occur in the Track view, because it's what I use the most (and maybe because these inconveniences don't exist in my secondary daw).
 
 
#1. Auto track scroll (when double-clicking a clip to open a desired view)
 


 
Sonar already has an ability to automatically scroll up/down tracks, which you can witness by showing MULTIPLE tracks in the PRV and clicking one of the tracks in the Track List pane on the right. Unfortunately, this auto-scroll doesn't happen when there's only ONE track in the PRV (which is the case when you double-click a clip to open the view). I've tried what I thought would be workarounds, but they all require at least three actions (edit: I was wrong. brundlefly gave me a two-click workaround in this post) or a few-second wait to show the clip above the PRV for simultaneous editing of notes and clips. And no, I don’t use dual monitors.
 
 
#2. The "focused track = selected track" option
 

 
As the screenshot indicates, a "focused track" and a "selected track" are two different things in Sonar. This is quite inconvenient because, for example, if you hit Alt+3 wanting to display only the "selected" tracks in the PRV, it also displays the "focused" track, which you don’t want displayed. Similarly, when you want to solo the "focused" track by hitting Alt+S (this is "Solo All Selected Tracks" and I have to use this because there's no shortcut key to solo the "focused" track), it solos the "selected" track(s). You could easily edit/delete clips on another track accidentally/unintentionally because of the current behavior. I hope there’ll be an option to change it.
 
 
#3. Option to hide the MIDI Editor indicator
 
There are some things that make Sonar’s Track view not very beautiful (e.g. the big padlock icons, gray and uncustomizable clip name text color, each folder displaying its track folder name, etc.) but the most uncalled-for thing in the Track view IMHO is the “MIDI Editor indicator” in the upper-right corner of each MIDI clip. This indicator was introduced in X2 as a handy feature, but honestly, do you use it? Me? NEVER. I wonder in what situation you would want one clip to open the PRV and another clip in the same track to open the Staff view or Event List or Step Sequencer view. I use lots of short MIDI clips and this MIDI Editor indicator often blocks me from opening the PRV when I double-click the clip. Also, take a look at the following two screenshots. You can see how easy it would be to read clip names if there wasn't this indicator in each clip. I really want an option to hide it.
 

With the indicator
 

Without the indicator
 
 
Thanks for reading. I hope my wishes will come true one day…

lawp
scalable console view with more sends, bigger fx bin, and less padding around screen elements

Yep, though not bothered about the bigger Fx bin
 
I would love to see a fix made when you insert a drum map where you currently can no longer just solo either the midi track or one of the associated audio tracks.

+1 womens 5 a side hockey

soens

Jlien X
 
Without the indicator

Well there is this...
 
"To globally hide the clip headers, click the Track view View menu, point to Display, and select Maximize Waveform Height. When this options is enabled, the waveform display spans the full height of clips."

This hides the indicator but the text is still gray and hard to see on light colored clips.

 
No, the indicator is still visible even after the Maximize Waveform Height is enabled.
 

#1. Colors.
#2. Like they were in 8.5 esp. changing backgrounds of clips and background of track names.
#3. GIVE ME MY COLORS BACK!!
 
Those would be helpful to me.

A simple one:  Disable keyboard shortcuts button... it's a constant frustration not being able to change patch names, enter in serial #s and a whole host of things because it triggers shortcuts...

Better preset management in Pentagon.
 
Install Rapture programs somewhere other than Program Data
 
 

Matt
#1. Colors.
#2. Like they were in 8.5 esp. changing backgrounds of clips and background of track names.
#3. GIVE ME MY COLORS BACK!!
 
Those would be helpful to me.

+672,596,583,692

lawp
scalable console view with more sends, bigger fx bin, and less padding around screen elements

 
 +1 
I Agree

Matt

RogerH
Changing background of clips working fine here (go to clip preferences).  Also all other colorchanges I've tried in the preferences box ( press P and go to colors) .
What are you missing?

Global changing of background clip colors.  You can change a clip background... then you record a new clip and you'd have to manually change it again. 

ok.
But you can select all (or just a few) clips and change foregound or background color in the clip preferences. You don't need to do it one by one.
I understand that this is not what you want, but I think it's a ok workaround.  Maybe it can be saved as a track or project template also ?

ok.
But you can select all (or just a few) clips and change foregound or background color in the clip preferences. You don't need to do it one by one.
I understand that this is not what you want, but I think it's a ok workaround.  Maybe it can be saved as a track or project template also ?

I appreciate the effort and help but it's not an ok workaround and there are a bunch of threads about this.  As well as being able to change the background of the track view, etc.  I don't understand why the colors were so much more customizable in older versions of sonar, why remove it...?
 

Fix the Playlist.