Niggle: Omni/None input display?

I can repeat this. The pattern, at least here, seems to be this: if a track is active, and you select 'none' in the dropdown list, it will show 'omni'. If you select 'none' from a non-active track, it will show 'none'. If you then make that track active and select 'none' it will change to 'omni' AND it will change the previously active, previously 'omni' track to 'none' even though you haven't changed anything there. 
 
Additionally, if I select a track with input set to 'none' in this scenario, I can play it. These are instrument tracks, but I tried splitting them up, and also assigning a new MIDI track to output to an existing synth, and it seems to be the same.
 
This does seem a bit strange to me, but I'm not enough of an expert to say whether it's a bug or some mysterious functionality that I don't quite understand. Anyone more informed have any thoughts?
 
I guess for the moment the workaround is to make very specific MIDI input selections if you want explicit control, and otherwise ignore this mysterious omni/none discrepancy, since they appear to exhibit the same behaviour. It's counter-intuitive, to say the least...

If you have Always Echo Current MIDI Track enabled in preferences, SONAR will not allow selecting None on the focused track, and will automatically default to Omni. In X2 and earlier, I believe it enforced this on all MIDI tracks whether they had focus or not. It seems they are no now allowing non-active tracks to be set to None until focus is shifted there.
 
There's also some inconsistency in what's shown, depending on whether a track is auto-echoing or has Input Echo forced ON. With auto-echo, you'll see "Omni". With forced echo ON, you'll see "AllInputsOmni".  I reported this inconsistency to the Bakers a long time ago, but it hasn't changed.
 
Personally, I tend to leave Always Echo disabled, and enable things manually. I don't generally work so quickly or have so many tracks in a project that this gets unwieldy as it might for some. I like to be in charge of what is or isn't being echoed, regardless of what's focused.
 
That said, if Always Echo didn't have this weird side-effect of insisting on having the input assigned, and defaulting to AllInputsOmni, I would probably like it better and use it more.
 
 

Thanks, all, and brundlefly, your explanation makes sense.  It's just one of those little things I noticed as a "new old beginner" and couldn't find documented.
 
It looks like I can switch them both to "Motif - Omni" (Motif is my MIDI input device) and at least they both stay the same.
 
Thanks again-
 
-Susan

konradh
This also happens in the Track View Inspector.  I have always found this a bit strange.

Hi konradh-
 
Yeah, it doesn't really seem to do anything for the User except maybe make them do a head scratch.
 
-Susan