UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/01/31 14:50:36
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Rothchild
This is looking great. Have we enough room to return phase and interleave to the fray?
Thanks. I'll see what I can do later. The thing is the icons don't exist in X1 so it will need a bit of extra work. Shame Brandon's vanished again, but I understand that, if he were to acknowledge how good this is, it would perhaps build an expectation that we may see some of these changes.
Indeed. I certainly don't expect anything from this. I'm just providing this as some food for though. (And I've enjoyed doing it simply for the sake of learning GIMP and some graphics chops). I think it is important to note that all the elements are from X1. There are some colour changes. Some size changes. A little bit of editing here and there but in the end it is all based on Cakewalk's original designs. Well... except for the glow on the record button.  UnderTow
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Rothchild
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/01/31 15:31:06
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The thing is the icons don't exist in X1 so it will need a bit of extra work. I'd understood they were on the strip inspector? Anyway, no biggie. I think you've done a great job of showing how much has been needlessly lost in the gaining of just a few additional necessary functions. Thanks again, Child
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UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/01/31 17:35:46
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Rothchild
The thing is the icons don't exist in X1 so it will need a bit of extra work. I'd understood they were on the strip inspector?
Ah that's possible. I'll have to get myself some screen-shots of the Inspector then next time I'm using X1. Anyway, no biggie. I think you've done a great job of showing how much has been needlessly lost in the gaining of just a few additional necessary functions.
My intention is to show what can be added rather than to show what is missing.  I believe the current design is quite nice and has some good points but IMO, it can be improved. I hope I have demonstrated that that is the case and in doing so given Cakewalk some ideas and food for thought. I hope I have clarified what to me is good GUI design. Clarity. Instantly recognisable states. Like grouped with like. The GUI should point the user to the relevant information. An example of where I think this fails in X1 is the I/O labels looking too similar to the Edit Filter. Combine that with the dynamic behaviour that can put widgets at any place in the track header and it means you have too look for the right element before you can tweak it. It is made even worse by the fact that two tracts that are one above each other could have their widgets at different locations. (Try having two audio tracks. One with a send and one without. Then drag the track header / pane divider and see how the widgets behave on the two tracks). I think my design where the widgets change based on the track width gives a clearer more consistent behaviour. (But it is obviously not the only solution). The behaviour is more consistent in previous versions of Sonar and uses less space but that really doesn't matter. That ship has sailed. The only thing that counts is the future. UnderTow
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VariousArtist
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/01 00:18:15
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UnderTow
As a user I can really see the improvements you've shown in this "potential" GUI. Everything from the choice of UI elements, the colours, the groupings -- it all seems so much clearer to me.
As a software engineer (for the past two decades) I know from experience that these things aren't always easy to design or implement as they might seem. But I also realize that there's always someone out there that can help re-think your position, and if I had a say I would certainly be ready to take on board a lot of your ideas.
I respect the effort and appreciate the effect. Nice work
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Rothchild
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 02:29:36
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Thanks for the reminder to stay on the positive side of the street UT.
And bump for a great piece of work. ;-)
Child
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 13:12:15
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Hello everybody! UnderTow, you're doing well on improving of track appearance. Absolutely agreed with you about bloated controls in X1... it's a real pain to look at them especially on 18,5'' monitor. I can understand Brandon's arguments like "we wanted some space to be empty, because we care about claustrophobics", but who's more in numbers - claustrophobists or people that still have 19'' monitors? And what about people that run Sonar on 1024*768 laptops (as I do on live performances)? And even on larger screens some more workspace would be not undesirable. Personally I hate new pan rotaries instead of sliders in track inspector and console. They occupy nearly 6 times much space than old pan control, the space that I could use to display something else. Also they have no coloring when turned right or left so it's harder to keep an eye on pan settings. My next point: aybe without buttons GUI looks less cluttered (for button-haters) but the fact is: having personally customized buttons in 8.5, it was a matter of 1 mouse click to activate option I need; now in X1 each time I have to: 1) choose proper menu 2) find needed option from dropdown list (for me, reading takes more time than memorizing a symbol - there's even a special discipline called mnemonics, that talks clearly about that) 3) click on this option. So, 3 steps instead of 1 mouse click. Some say, the workflow is streamlined, heh? The same applies to widget tabs in the track view. In 8.5 I could switch to the one I needed at once with simple mouse click, because they all were visible at the bottom of the track view. Now there's a useless empty space instead. So, why not add an option in the view menu to show widget tabs under the track view? If someone fears it can 'clutter' something he can always switch it off. When turned on, it should look like that:  Now there's no need for menu button in the upper right corner (it shows "mix" on picture), we can leave this space empty or use it to display some other information.
post edited by Jekyll Vance - 2011/02/03 12:32:00
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UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 13:40:07
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I agree about the Widget tabs. I liked the way that works in previous version of Sonar. I think Widget menu in X1 could be used to show/hide types of tracks. All Audio Tracks, All MIDI Tracks, Synth Tracks, Buses etc... (Yes we should be allowed to put buses anywhere between normal tracks. Not just in the bus pane which IMO should go). EDIT: Come to think of it, it shouldn't be a menu. Just 5 buttons to show/hide with one click: Audio Tracks MIDI Tracks Synth Tracks Buses Time Rulers Alternatively it could be an Add Track button. Something obvious like that... Btw, what would the Patch and Scale tabs do? UnderTow
post edited by UnderTow - 2011/02/02 13:45:07
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 14:37:29
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Widget tabs are taken from my standard 8.5 setup... On Patch tab I have Channel/Bank/Preset fields for instrument/MIDI tracks. On Scale tab I have key offset, scale and root note options. Since now all this functionality is transported to event inspenctor, there's no need for these tabs I guess... but personally I dislike it, because full-sized 2-strip event inspector occupies very much place, which could be saved if arpeggiator, snap to scale and other functions were left available as widgets so I could tune their visibility to my taste
post edited by Jekyll Vance - 2011/02/02 15:24:10
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 16:15:39
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Well, the next proposal is just a thought experiment, though I hope somebody may like it. What if we make more use of this empty area above the tracks? Let's place there a thing that can be called mini track inspector. It will allow us to keep tracks minimized and "big" track inspector closed most of the time. In essence mini-inspector is a separate widget tab, that is constantly visible on top of all tracks, that shows information only for the active track (its widget content may be customized via widget tab manager) You can switch between time display (which is more appropriate when you are working in the clips pane) and mini-inspector (which is useful when you are working with tracks' parameters in the track pane) with dedicated button.  Useful or not?
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UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 16:38:25
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The mini-inspector is a great idea! Sheer brilliance!
UnderTow
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mrfitz
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 16:41:05
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The mini inspector would really be the thing for working with minimized tracks. Let's hope someone sees this.
Sonar X1c pe x64 Sonar VS-100 phenom 9600 x4 Win 7 x64 Home Prem 4 gigabytes ram a homebrew champ and a telecaster
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UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 17:26:26
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I've also been busy in the meanwhile. Here is the latest version of my mock-up:  I've unfolded FX Chains. This let's you see what is in an FX Chain. I think this is both much neater than the little box that opens in X1 and more functional. With the bigger FX Bin there is no issue with readability of names. I suppose it needs a little button to open/close the chain but as it is it would be a right click context menu. This is already better than the way it is in X1 IMO. I've added an indentation for Tracks in Track Folders. (With a little linking line like in previous versions of Sonar). I've done this slightly differently than how Sonar used to do it: I've made the track icons and track names align with the Track Folder icons and names. I think this looks neater than it did in old Sonar but it is still clear that items are in a folder due to the indentation. The Folder names and icons etc are indented compared to regular tracks making them easy to find when you have All tracks in a project minimised. I think that overall this is both clearer than X1 and neater and clearer than old Sonar. I've shaved off some more pixels from a minimised Track. (You can see it in the Track Folder). It is now 21 pixels tall compared to 25 pixel in X1. That means that in the space that X1 uses for 32 tracks (800 pixels), you could put 38 Tracks with my design. (+ 2 pixels to spare. ;-)). Btw, if you want to compare between my design and the existing X1 design (with similar items loaded) you can open the following to links in adjacent tabs and use CTRL-TAB and CTRL-SHIFT-TAB to switch between the two (At least in Firefox): http://puretone.nl/pics/A..._Sends_V17_cropped.png http://puretone.nl/pics/X1_Original.png I'm going to play with the brilliant Mini Inspector idea next. UnderTow
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Dave Modisette
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 17:53:32
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Jekyll Vance
Well, the next proposal is just a thought experiment, though I hope somebody may like it.
What if we make more use of this empty area above the tracks?
Let's place there a thing that can be called mini track inspector. It will allow us to keep tracks minimized and "big" track inspector closed most of the time.
In essence mini-inspector is a separate widget tab, that is constantly visible on top of all tracks, that shows information only for the active track (its widget content may be customized via widget tab manager)
You can switch between time display (which is more appropriate when you are working in the clips pane) and mini-inspector (which is useful when you are working with tracks' parameters in the track pane) with dedicated button.
Useful or not?
Isn't there something like that already where clicking on a track will expand it? The advantage is that it increases the size vertically of both the Track Pane as well as the clips in the Clips Pane.
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UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 18:48:16
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One thing that could probably be useful is a global Edit Filter that works for all tracks. It could take the place of the widget selection menu thingy...
UnderTow
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DBerriman
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 19:18:10
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groove 3 videos . Where can these free Groove 3 videos be found? Thanks.
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SteveStrummerUK
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 19:35:55
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Jekyll Vance
Well, the next proposal is just a thought experiment, though I hope somebody may like it.
What if we make more use of this empty area above the tracks?
Let's place there a thing that can be called mini track inspector. It will allow us to keep tracks minimized and "big" track inspector closed most of the time.
In essence mini-inspector is a separate widget tab, that is constantly visible on top of all tracks, that shows information only for the active track (its widget content may be customized via widget tab manager)
You can switch between time display (which is more appropriate when you are working in the clips pane) and mini-inspector (which is useful when you are working with tracks' parameters in the track pane) with dedicated button.
Useful or not?
Very useful - nice idea. I'm also with you on losing the pan knob and going back to a (coloured) slider.
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 19:36:00
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Mod Bod Yes, it will expand, but then you will have to double click once more to de-expand it. You can of course do it if you need maximized strip to view waveform in details etc. When adjusting parameters on several tracks you'll find yourself constantly double-clicking icons. With mini-inspector you only have to select track with one mouse click and this gives you instant access to track controls without constanly maximizing/minimizing tracks UnderTow You design looks much better than default X1 in terms of widget layout, but I still see too many unused space) FX is too far apart from other widgets Agreed on FX Chains. No need for special button, it must fold/unfold on double-click (and track folders must also behave that way!). I guess FX chains must have slightly different name or button color than regular effects to distinguish them. On/off buttons also seem important to me: in X1 they're just ugly. I want back nifty colored rectangle indicators from 8.5 (I liked them bright green). They must have different color than FX names. Also thicker level draggers from 8.5 IMHO looked much better. But in X1 they pumped up everything, except draggers)) Per-track auto-echo switch is certainly a good idea. Sometimes there are tracks that mustn't be monitored while we need auto-echo on others. Also agreed on folder/track indentation, it must be present. Maybe your approach is even better than in 8.5, but not sure. Bringing sends display back to widgets also makes sense. Honestly, I'd like to bring back everything they removed from widgets, including all these midi options now put exclusively to track inspector. What exactly do you mean by global Edit Filter? SteveStrummerUK Thank you. By the way, sends' and arpeggiator's rotaries are also in my blacklist)
post edited by Jekyll Vance - 2011/02/02 19:42:32
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UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 20:24:18
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Jekyll Vance
UnderTow
You design looks much better than default X1 in terms of widget layout, but I still see too many unused space) FX is too far apart from other widgets
Thanks and yes there is still space but don't forget that you can move the track header / track pane divider to move the FX bin closer. Do you think the FX Bin needs to be any bigger than this? It is already quite a bit wider than in old Sonar. When I do a bigger mock-up I'll have things a bit more compact. And maybe a version with and one without icons. (And one with large Icons). Agreed on FX Chains. No need for special button, it must fold/unfold on double-click (and track folders must also behave that way!). I guess FX chains must have slightly different name or button color than regular effects to distinguish them.
Yes they have a "Layered" icon for FX Chains and in my next post you will see a "layered" glowing On/Off button. :-) The Name of the FX Chain (and chained plugins) will be indented which should also make things clearer. On/off buttons also seem important to me: in X1 they're just ugly. I want back nifty colored rectangle indicators from 8.5 (I liked them bright green). They must have different color than FX names.
Glowing buttons in the next mock-up. :-) (They are the same colour as the text but I think that looks quite neat and keeps with the X1 style). Also thicker level draggers from 8.5 IMHO looked much better. But in X1 they pumped up everything, except draggers))
Good point. I can't actually test my mock-up in use. I don't know how hard those volume sliders are to grab... Then again, the drag region doesn't have to be exactly the same as the graphic. The whole area above the actual volume line could be draggable. Per-track auto-echo switch is certainly a good idea. Sometimes there are tracks that mustn't be monitored while we need auto-echo on others.
It isn't per track in X1? I only really put that there because I had a space to fill. If I have a better idea for that spot it will be replaced. Also agreed on folder/track indentation, it must be present. Maybe your approach is even better than in 8.5, but not sure.
I think it should be clearer once I do a bigger mock-up with many tracks. Bringing sends display back to widgets also makes sense. Honestly, I'd like to bring back everything they removed from widgets, including all these midi options now put exclusively to track inspector.
Indeed. Removing functionality that existed in the name of uncluttering when they could have just changed the default setting is a bit silly IMO. There are even three empty lines in the Track Control Manager! What exactly do you mean by global Edit Filter?
In X1 there is an Edit Filter on every track. (It determines what you are editing in the Track Pane. Clips, Envelopes, Inline PRV etc. I think it would be a good idea to have a global one too. If you switch the global menu, all tracks change. For flexibility they should then add a lock option for individual tracks so that if there is a track which you always want to keep on Volume envelope (for instance) you can. Anyway, just an idea... UnderTow
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UnderTow
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 20:26:04
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Another Mock-up. This time with Glowing FX On/Off buttons and a Mini Inspector. The Mini Inspector might need different stuff though. I just quickly put some things in there for now to show case Jekyll Vance's idea within my design. I also made small track icons with no background. I think this looks neater. At some point I will make a bigger mock-up with more tracks so that things become clearer. And at some point I will have to tackle MIDI and Instrument tracks but it all takes time to isolate each element, edit it and then integrate it into the mock-up etc...  UnderTow
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stickman393
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/02 20:50:46
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Now this is what I expected for SONAR 10.
+++1
Would fantasize again.
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chaunceyc
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/03 02:19:34
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Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk]
But for years, we've heard how SONAR has too many buttons, and really...it did. Menu items were all over the place and the UI needed streamlining. From our perspective far more agree iwth this than don't .
Unfortunately, X1 makes this "all over the place" much worse. Case in point: Sonar 8.5 had 12 main drop-down menus, all accessible by The 17 year old Windows Alt + ______ keyboard shortcut standard. (i.e. Alt + F pulls down the file menu, no matter where you are in the program.) X1 took these same commands and scattered them off into 19 menus - only 9 of which can now be accessed without a mouse. Open up the same project in both versions with just Track view and the inspector open and you'll see what I mean. This is bad enough, but it also raises one of my all-time User Interface pet peeves -- pulldown submenus that change location. Those freaking submenus--depending on what you have open, visible, expanded, resized, etc.--they can literally vary in location by 9.5 inches horizontally and 1 inch vertically. So, X1 has removed keyboard access to them, made them extremely unpredictable as to where they are going to be on your screen. The "track" submenu on my 23" monitor can be almost all the way to the left or 3/4 to the right, depending on whether the inspector or browser is open. It is hard to imagine a dentist or a surgeon or woodworker anyone who relies on their tools having them move around. My "go-to" menus now take an extra effort each and every time I use them--are they visible? Yes. Let's find it on the screen--well, it is going to be somewhere in a 9.5 sq. inch area somewhere in the upper part of my screen...uh...Good. Now lets find where the mouse cursor is. uh.....OK, now move it the 15 inches to the track menu. Click on it, drop down the menus. Congratulations!!, it has only taken 4-5 seconds and you've made the track submenu actions visible! That's only about 800% to 1000% slower than the equivalent action in 8.5, where I could pull down the menu AND fire off the command [ALT + E,K] in about a half second WITHOUT LOOKING up from my work--without assigning a keybinding. Stable location + stable keystroke combinations regardless of context... these are always going to be more efficient than hunting and clicking with the mouse to run a command or pull up a dialog box. Can we please have those back as Menu items instead of submenus? If they are always going to be onscreen, why can't they stay at the very top as before?
post edited by chaunceyc - 2011/02/03 02:22:05
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chaunceyc
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/03 02:47:11
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mike_mccue
Facts is facts
click view image to see as 100% scale
+1 The fact that freeze status, Archive status aren't visible at all in the one-line view until you kill about half your track view is a real drag. I find myself constantly resizing all of my tracks to make the track filter visible--Why that can't be relocated to the inspector? The inspector and browser "collapse" view still takes up nearly 7 square inches of screen real estate (8.5 could totally collapse). With the same layout compared between the two versions, 8.5 showed Archive status, Automation Read , Write Status, Freeze Status, in much less room. There is so much wasted empty areas. It is showing me a streamlined view of a lot of stuff I don't care about, and requires near constant resizing to display the info I do need because of the bulky fonts and as someone mentioned "Duplo vs. Lego graphics." Please don't suggest screensets...they crash on me if I click through them slightly too fast.
PC AudioLabs Rokbox 7 (Core i7 3.40GHz, Gigabyte Z-68, 20 GB Ram, Windows 10 64-bit), MOTU 2408 Mk II / PCI-424, UAD-2. Sonar Professional, Soulphonic Soundsystem (soulphonicsound.com) Convincing Woodgrain | Portland USA nujazz/brokenbeat/neo-soul/downtempo/deep house www.soundcloud.com/chaunceyc
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/03 12:15:34
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It isn't per track in X1? There's no per-track AUTO-echo option, only Input echo On/off for each track. If we want to enable auto-echo, we have to globally activate "always echo current midi track" option in preferences. In X1 there is an Edit Filter on every track. (It determines what you are editing in the Track Pane. Clips, Envelopes, Inline PRV etc. I think it would be a good idea to have a global one too. If you switch the global menu, all tracks change. For flexibility they should then add a lock option for individual tracks so that if there is a track which you always want to keep on Volume envelope (for instance) you can. Anyway, just an idea... I think it will be certainly more useful than widget tab switcher, so I vote for it! Write it down to wish-list. I also made small track icons with no background. I think this looks neater. I think background is a need... If we tweak this grey panel color into something else (and actually it's what I'd like to do), with some bright color settings icons can become undistinguishable without background. BTW, do you have some design plan for MIDI track also?) just to have the full picture
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chaunceyc
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/04 11:18:12
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Jekyll Vance
Well, the next proposal is just a thought experiment, though I hope somebody may like it.
What if we make more use of this empty area above the tracks?
Let's place there a thing that can be called mini track inspector. It will allow us to keep tracks minimized and "big" track inspector closed most of the time.
In essence mini-inspector is a separate widget tab, that is constantly visible on top of all tracks, that shows information only for the active track (its widget content may be customized via widget tab manager)
You can switch between time display (which is more appropriate when you are working in the clips pane) and mini-inspector (which is useful when you are working with tracks' parameters in the track pane) with dedicated button.
Useful or not?
I'd be fine if the freeze and archive button were up there, but only if there was better visual feedback on the track. If I have 20 tracks and 5 of them are archived, 3 are frozen, I want to be able to see that during playback, not by having to focus on each track and look at this button at the top. Perhaps if the whole track would change to a distinct translucent color (NO MORE 6 different gradations of gray please!) upon freeze or archive. It would free up space (I wouldn't have to open my track headers to 7" wide to view this status, and hopefully it would continue to report this status during playback--the current Archive and Freeze and audio engine status inexplicably disappear upon playback, and display again only after the transport stops.
PC AudioLabs Rokbox 7 (Core i7 3.40GHz, Gigabyte Z-68, 20 GB Ram, Windows 10 64-bit), MOTU 2408 Mk II / PCI-424, UAD-2. Sonar Professional, Soulphonic Soundsystem (soulphonicsound.com) Convincing Woodgrain | Portland USA nujazz/brokenbeat/neo-soul/downtempo/deep house www.soundcloud.com/chaunceyc
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/04 11:35:24
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Yes you are right, frozen and archived tracks should have some special color marking, preferrably customizable, for the whole track, like we have for selected track, so we can check their status not being depandant from archive/ freeze buttons visibility. I guess we can write it down to wish-list too
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bermuda
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/04 11:50:23
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UnderTow
I've also been busy in the meanwhile. Here is the latest version of my mock-up:
I've unfolded FX Chains. This let's you see what is in an FX Chain. I think this is both much neater than the little box that opens in X1 and more functional. With the bigger FX Bin there is no issue with readability of names. I suppose it needs a little button to open/close the chain but as it is it would be a right click context menu. This is already better than the way it is in X1 IMO.
I've added an indentation for Tracks in Track Folders. (With a little linking line like in previous versions of Sonar). I've done this slightly differently than how Sonar used to do it: I've made the track icons and track names align with the Track Folder icons and names. I think this looks neater than it did in old Sonar but it is still clear that items are in a folder due to the indentation. The Folder names and icons etc are indented compared to regular tracks making them easy to find when you have All tracks in a project minimised. I think that overall this is both clearer than X1 and neater and clearer than old Sonar.
I've shaved off some more pixels from a minimised Track. (You can see it in the Track Folder). It is now 21 pixels tall compared to 25 pixel in X1. That means that in the space that X1 uses for 32 tracks (800 pixels), you could put 38 Tracks with my design. (+ 2 pixels to spare. ;-)).
Btw, if you want to compare between my design and the existing X1 design (with similar items loaded) you can open the following to links in adjacent tabs and use CTRL-TAB and CTRL-SHIFT-TAB to switch between the two (At least in Firefox):
http://puretone.nl/pics/Audio_Track_Header_Suggestion_No_Sends_V17_cropped.png
http://puretone.nl/pics/X1_Original.png
I'm going to play with the brilliant Mini Inspector idea next.
UnderTow
I appreciate the effort you have put in , but to me personally , this is cluttered and all the colours would be very quickly headache inducing. Each to their own. Don't let my comment put you off your redesign.
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/04 12:02:10
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I appreciate the effort you have put in , but to me personally , this is cluttered and all the colours would be very quickly headache inducing All colors must be customizable, like in S8.5, that's what we want anyway.
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Brandon Ryan [Roland]
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/04 12:08:22
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Shame Brandon's vanished again, but I understand that, if he were to acknowledge how good this is, it would perhaps build an expectation that we may see some of these changes.
Child
Don't worry - I'm here.
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." WG SONAR Platinum | VS-700 | A-800 PRO | PCAL i7 with SSD running Windows 8 x64 | Samsung 27" LCD @ 1920x1080 | Blue Sky monitors with BMC | All kinds of other stuff
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Jekyll Vance
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/04 12:09:08
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Well, the idea about "mini-inspector" evolved into something bigger. On widescreen monitors we have a lot more place available in horizontal plane than in vertical. Multidock is aligned horizontal. Though, some views (markers, event list, meters/key, SysX) will be handier to use and waste less space, if positioned vertical (like browser by default). On the other hand, sometimes we want the synth rack to be positioned horizontal (when working with assigned synth parameters). So, what we need instead of browser + multidock concept, are two universal multidocks with "equal rights", positioned one horizontally and another vertically. All standard legacy views from Sonar 8.5 must have ability to be docked in either of them; media browser and plugin browser should be treated separately, so we can have one of them docked horizontally and another vertically, having access to both at the same time, if we want so. Synth rack must be independent from them and retain two modes, vertical and horizontal, that we already see in X1. This also concerns Track inspector - it has a lot of modules (in X1 they are quite bulky and take much space vertically, so they never fit on screen at once). So track inspector should be treated like any other view and also should have two modes, with horizontal mode docked in horizontal multidock. A view like that will allow us to have more modules visible at once, than we have in vertical mode, and work with minimized tracks most of the time without that space-eating double-strip inspector pane on the left. 
post edited by Jekyll Vance - 2011/02/04 12:33:39
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Guest
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Re:X1 User interface looks cluttered!
2011/02/04 12:57:20
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Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk
]
Shame Brandon's vanished again, but I understand that, if he were to acknowledge how good this is, it would perhaps build an expectation that we may see some of these changes.
Child
Don't worry - I'm here.
I didn't see you reply to my post, so I wanted to ask again. Why does the X1 manual say that "archiving" removes clips (not groove clips) from RAM and not from drive streaming as you said in the other thread? Which one of these things is correct?
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