Ah, I think I see now I was confused when you said chasing. Now I get you mean chasing back from the END point of the deletion to what was in the hole, then applying those properties to where the end point ends up. Right?

Anderton

sharke
I think, however, that it's logical that all tempo and time signature events after the cut should be shifted to the left when the gap is filled.

 
Well I think I have some good news. I could get tempo but not time signature to slide over properly when I first started with a blank project, but now it's happening exactly the way it's supposed to. Not sure what I did to make that happen; this is part of the testing to which I alluded. If I can provide a recipe for both making it happen as expected and the conditions that don't make it happen as expected, I bet the fix wouldn't be too hard. I have a feeling it might relate to the presence of markers, because once I tried deleting hole after experimenting to see what markers did, things started working correctly.
 
Now it's becoming a puzzle...I like to solve puzzles , wish me luck. 
 

I hope so! :-)
 
But to be sure we're covering some "ugly" but real world scenarios.  Try doing this with a smattering of clips of various sizes that provide a scientifically exhaustive approach to being sure:

• clips that extend both ends of the region
• clips that extend before start of the region but not past the end (and vice versa)
• small clips within the region boundaries
• small clips before and after the boundaries
• all of the above with MIDI and AUDIO
• all of the above with tempo changes occurring before/after the small clips as well as before/after the region boundaries (but not directly before after -- that's too easy)

 
My experience is that, under normal recording of ideas and overdubs I may amass the above list over a dozen or more tracks.  Then when it comes time to delete a time selection across all tracks right in the middle of tempo changes and time signature changes, I run into issues of those small clips not being in the same place relative to the MBT when I started.
 
DISCLAIMER/FULL-DISCLOSURE:
Perhaps some of this has been improved in recent Sonar versions, because I came up with my approach back with X1 (maybe even 8.5).  I believe I tried to go a simpler route with later versions but ultimately had to fallback to my overly zealous approach I described earlier.  And since my approach has worked consistently for me I stick with it.  But I would *love* to use a simpler automated method that, cough, "just works" ;-)
 

You know, I only posted once in this thread-agreeing with Sharke at the beginning-still do. But after reading all the posts after mine it is obvious that check boxes or something would have to be involved for Sonar to know exactly what you want at that given time and edit- I know this has been mentioned a bunch already.
Just sayin I could work with that.  Especially if they (check-boxes) stayed the way you used them last and have a default reset button....I think it would be easier to implement that way-we do some of the thinking for the new feature......so to speak. Just my 2 cents, or 1 cent.

I think the first task is to define what's consistent and what's not. I don't think there's any advantage to adding options to something that has inconsistencies. It may be a bug, or it may be predictable, but undesired, behavior. Once whatever exists is solid, then it's possible to start tinkering with it.

I still think a lot of of problems could be avoided by restricting a Delete Time function to regions with no clips. So it's the job of the user to clear any audio or MIDI clips within the region first, including data which straddles the cut points. That way, we can set aside any question of what Sonar should do with data which extends into or starts inside the region. The only things you'd have to deal with is time signature and tempo events within the region, because they determine the state of the project after the cut point. 
 
I think it's safe to say that if your object is to delete time, you're not looking to preserve any audio or MIDI data within the region you're trying to delete. If you do wish to preserve any of it, it's up to you to move it to another place before the operation. 

Anderton
Ah, I think I see now I was confused when you said chasing. Now I get you mean chasing back from the END point of the deletion to what was in the hole, then applying those properties to where the end point ends up. Right?

Yup! Thanks for adding the clarity.

Another potential complication would be what to do in a situation in which the user has selected a region which contains partial measures? Should the operation be restricted only to time selections which start and end on bar lines? 

sharke
Another potential complication would be what to do in a situation in which the user has selected a region which contains partial measures? Should the operation be restricted only to time selections which start and end on bar lines? 

Someone might want to delete a range that is a whole number of measures, but not at a measure boundary (e.g. pickup-to-pickup).
 
But if someone really wanted to delete a range that is not a whole number of measures, or even beats, I wonder what would their intentions be? Sounds too hard to guess ... Sound track maybe?

Yeah it's hard to imagine why you would want to do that, but who knows? Let's say the song is in 4/4 and the region you selected started on beat 2 of a measure of ended on beat 3 of a measure. After the join you would end up with a measure of 3/4. 
 
Of course you could make it so that Sonar behaves the same way as Insert Time behaves when you've set the cursor in between bar lines - it inserts the time from the next bar line after the cursor. So perhaps a Delete Time function would round off to the nearest bar lines in a similar way. 

Anderton

sharke
It's far more important that Sonar preserve time signature and tempo changes, given that it's a music creation program.

Maybe I'm just slow, but I still don't understand how SONAR would know where to re-place a time signature or tempo change event if it existed in an area that no longer exists. Kylotan presented one option, but then, someone could argue that groove pitch markers or MIDI program changes are equally important, and require their own pop-up menu..and then the "keep it simple and fast" option becomes much more difficult.

Couldn't the last of every Time signature, tempo and CC message from the deleted region be moved to preserved.. All the Tempo, Time siganture and CC data before the last are irrelevant, but the last is relevent for the kept section after.