Did you try left clicking toward the top of the note? Where the velocity tool appears.

You can drag any CB module to any position you want

Left clicking on a particular part of the note is difficult, since I do most of my note editing on the fly (during playback), and most of my note editing involves drum hits, which are very short.

Moving the event inspector onto the piano roll is not an ideal solution either, since it would sit on top of the piano roll even when not needed. Perhaps if there were a quick way to show/hide the event inspector, it would be less obtrusive, but it would still be a lot less convenient than a simple right click to open note properties. I might as well use the select tool instead of the smart tool.

Cakewalk had an efficient, intuitive system before: right click anywhere in a note to open the note properties. I wish they could give us the option to have that back.

I don't think we're on the same wavelength here.

I think you're talking about the Track Inspector.

The Even Inspector is a module contained within the Control Bar at the top of the screen.
Each module can be dragged into a different horizontal position  making it easier to "line Up" with whatever screen you're working with

Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I know what the event inspector is: http://www.cakewalk.com/D...Req=ControlBar.13.html

My piano roll view takes up my entire second monitor (to reduce my need to scroll, since I edit during playback). If I drag the event inspector onto that monitor, the event inspector will obscure some part of the piano roll view, which is undesirable. I would then need to show/hide the event inspector each time I want to edit note properties. This involves additional key presses and/or mouse clicks, which I am trying to avoid (otherwise, I'd simply switch to the select tool instead of the smart tool).

Is that clearer?

Tripecac


In Sonar 8.5 and earlier, we could right click on a note in the to view its properties.

In Sonar X1, we had to ctrl-right click (since right click deleted the note).

In Sonar X2, right click still deletes the note, but ctrl-right click no longer opens the Note Properties window.

How do we access note properties?



NOTE: This page seems wrong: http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation/default.aspx?Doc=SONAR%20X2&Lang=EN&Req=Dialogs2.040.html

How do we access note properties?

 
Seeing you are using 2 monitors, how about placing the 'Event List View' on 1 monitor and the PRV on the other. The Event List shows everything of the note properties plus more.
When you select a note in PRV a black bar pops-up on the left edge of the page. You can then use the mouse to select the field you want to modify and use the plus/minus key on your keyboard to quickly change values or double click to type it in.
 
This way we have four powerful means of doing things for midi with Sonar(at least in this context)
 
1. The PRV
2. The Smart Tool, which floats in the PRV
3. The Event List*
4. The Event Inspector Module, as Scott showed, can do tricks more versatile than apparent

This is still bugging me in Sonar Platinum. 
 
In the Piano Roll View, when you have the smart tool selected, is there any way to have right clicking a note  open the note properties instead of deleting a note? 

Tripecac
In the Piano Roll View, when you have the smart tool selected, is there any way to have right clicking a note  open the note properties instead of deleting a note? 

Yes. In Windows Settings for Mouse, make the right mouse button your primary button. But then the left mouse button will delete notes 
 
Since you don't want to use the Control Bar (which FYI you can show/hide by typing "C"), I think a click+hold on the note with the left mouse button, which brings up a "tooltips"-like banner with note properties, is a better alternative. The note can be extremely short because this will work whether the cursor is the slip-edit tool or the move tool...basically anything except the pencil tool.

I will try the click-hold, but I'm not sure it will work well, since I usually edit notes on the fly (during playback).

It may be small consolation but I do not believe anyone moving from pre-X series SONAR avoided changing some of their methods. Trying to force a current version of SONAR to work like 8.5 is not pleasant or completely possible.