Tell Me Again How This Editing Works in X3

So, it's been a couple of months since I was "in the weeds" with X3 everyday, and I seem to have drawn a complete blank on how to enter individual notes in Piano View using the Draw mode.  Funny thing is when I opened this project again it worked perfectly just as I had intuitively imagined.  Then, all of a sudden, it quits working.  The Sonar instructions are REALLY lame, and presumptuous, so I'd like for someone to 'splain it to me like a 2 yr old.  Please?
KC
 

In the piano roll view, click with the pencil tool where you want the note to start. The start will be quantized to the nearest note value as set in the PIANO ROLL VIEW quantize field, not the one in the Control Bar. If you don't see this option, click on the "tic-tac-toe" board in the upper right of the PRV.
 
The field to the right of the Sonar X3 logo in the upper left (and under the Draw tool in the Smart Tool palette) is where you set the note duration that appears when you click. This duration will "stick" until you change it, or click with the pencil tool on a note of a different duration; then the pencil tool will "adopt" that value.
 
You can also draw with the Smart tool; click and drag to the desired length. Again, this will start at a time quantized by the Quantize field in the PRV. When you draw a note length with the Smart Tool, its value will be remembered if you switch to the pencil tool, and it will adopt that value.
 
Note: If you don't want to quantize the note start, despite rumors to the contrary typing N will enable/disable quantize for both the PRV field and the Control Bar field. 

Just to add to the above....  You can also add notes using the Smart Tool (with the current duration value) by double-clicking or Alt+clicking.  I personally use a five button mouse and have the thumb button mapped to double-click.  And as Craig mentioned the "N" key will disable Snap, but you can also hold down the "N" key to just temporarily disable snap (key up = Snap re-enabled). 
 
FWIW, single-clicking is by default used for selecting / editing notes.
 

sock monkey
Yep the smart tool is a great invention, It's actually smarter than my smart phone! 
 
It takes a bit of practice but it works brilliantly. 

^^^^
 

 I miss the older piano roll going back to like Sonar2.  BTW is it possible to change the color background of the piano roll? I have not messed with changing colors in Sonar.

I recently discovered the HUD which makes changing tools and durations a lot easier. Instead of dragging your mouse up to the upper right corner every every time you want to change tools or note durations, hit T instead. Hitting T puts the whole tool menu section right at your current mouse cursor position. Very useful.
 

King Conga
Thanks guys, really.  However, I stil don't understand why when I use the Draw tool sometimes it shows the "ink bottle", and other times I'll try to click to create a note, and it just gives me what looks like 1 of the controller hooks (like what you see when you use a modulation, or pitch wheel). I'm REALLY not trying to be thick here, I just can't figure when the Smart thingy is going to work or not.

Would it be possible for you to post a screencap or link to the image here? I just can't picture what you're describing.