Using FX Bin forces use of Track Lanes?

Only this week I upgraded from 8.5 to X3.  During this awkward "I'm a newb again" period, I'm trying to avoid asking questions that have answers in the manual or at the Forum. - But I have a question involving Take Lanes that I haven't found info on.  

Using Forum search, I can see there's quite a history of users not being thrilled with Take Lanes, and that some people found the more straight-forward Layers easier to work with.  My first confusion with them was how once I had multiple clips in a track, resulting in Take Lanes, I couldn't directly edit the clips anymore, but had to work with the duplicate images in the Take Lanes - OK, got over that.

The question - is this the way it's supposed to be? - I had a track with just one audio clip in it.  Once I added two plugins in the track's FX Bin, I couldn't use the smart tool for editing the clip's length, I had to work with Track Lanes.  Once I changed the length of the clip there, the image of the audio in the main track disappeared but the audio still played normally.

So - Adding FX to a track forces you to use Track Lanes even for a single clip-?  And you're supposed to no longer see the clip in the main track area-?

Randy B.

scook
Make sure the edit filter on the track is set to clips. Adding plug-ins to the FX bin does not require the use of take lanes for editing clips.

Hi, Scook - Thanks for the reply.
 
So adding FX automatically changes the edit filter setting?  I think that must be what you're saying.  But I'm saying the Track Lane just appeared after adding the FX, and the waveform disappeared in the main track - that can't be right.
 
R

scook
The edit filter does not change automatically and take lanes don't appear automatically either when adding plug-ins to the FX bin. At least, I have not seen either happen spontaneously. To display take lanes is SHIFT+T and the take lane button at the bottom of the track.

Well that's the way I thought it would work, the only way that makes sense really.  But that isn't what happened while working on my project yesterday.  The full scenario:
 
--I had a single audio clip in a track.
--I added two plugins in the track's FX bin.
--I could no longer use the Smart Tool on the clip.
--The Track Lanes had appeared and that's where I had to work on the clip.
--The clip's waveform had disappeared in the main track, and the track remained "empty" for the rest of the session.
 
So, I guess that was weird behavior.  The project plays fine, but that's exactly what happened when working with that track.
 
Randy B.

Scook is 100 % right. I have never seen anything like what Randy is talking about. 
 
Adding FX is not going to open up the lanes view. Something was done to cause them to appear The lanes might appear if the clips are stacked upon one another. 
 
 

It is because there is only one take lane. Add a second take lane.
 
BTW are these new projects or projects converted from 8.5?

Yes. Even when the second lane is empty.

I know it's hard to wrap your head around the X-series at first if you've come from 8.5. But if your experience is anything like mine, in a few months you'll be wondering how come it's become so much easier to do music