mudgel
don't discount the manual it's a tremendous and underrated resource.

I agree. Between Search and Index, I can usually find what I want.

This is pretty well hidden, but in the Track View under View > Display, I really like that you can choose to have the vertical grid lines go behind the clips or in front of them. When the grid lines are in front of the clips, it's really easy to see which notes/hits/chords etc. are on the beat, which ones are off, and by how much. I often split and re-arrange to hit the grid instead of invoking AudioSnap or quantize, so this feature is particularly wonderful for me.

A great feature for composers who compose using notation is that Sonar can open multiple staff windows at once. Here's how:
 
Dock the staff view and on the docked tab right-click and choose "Lock Contents".  Mouse up to the top View menu and choose staff view again, and lock it as well.  Do this as many times as you need. 
 
I have winds, brass, percussion and strings, and then one more staff view with variable instruments all in separate tabs, saves a lot of time not having to pick tracks in staff view!
 
JG
www.jerrygerber.com
 

John T
Reading some of this, I'm thinking we should have a parallel "confessions" thread. Features you completely fail at.
 
<stands up nervously in front of group> My name is John T, and I've never understood drum maps.

you are not the only one.  Maybe it's more useful for certain styles fo production over others

dubdisciple

John T
Reading some of this, I'm thinking we should have a parallel "confessions" thread. Features you completely fail at.
 
<stands up nervously in front of group> My name is John T, and I've never understood drum maps.

you are not the only one.  Maybe it's more useful for certain styles of production over others

Bonus idea for an article! Carry on.

jsg, speaking of notation...Fret View is what I call the "poor man's MIDI guitar." You can plop notes down on the virtual neck to drive MIDI instruments, which makes it easy for guitar players to send guitar voicings to instruments instead of keyboard voicings. I used it when I had this massive synth sound which was just screaming out to be played like a power chord, so...I created power chords in fret view. Given my being guitar-centric, it was easier than mapping the guitar notes to a keyboard.
 

Turn off VST scanning at startup.  Some DAWs neither had or removed that feature.  Plugins that require dongles can be a real hassle if you forget to plug the dongle in. 

John T
Reading some of this, I'm thinking we should have a parallel "confessions" thread. Features you completely fail at.
 
<stands up nervously in front of group> My name is John T, and I've never understood drum maps.

Hey John,

Want to start a support group! ;)

jsg
A great feature for composers who compose using notation is that Sonar can open multiple staff windows at once. Here's how:
 
Dock the staff view and on the docked tab right-click and choose "Lock Contents".  Mouse up to the top View menu and choose staff view again, and lock it as well.  Do this as many times as you need. 
 
I have winds, brass, percussion and strings, and then one more staff view with variable instruments all in separate tabs, saves a lot of time not having to pick tracks in staff view!
 
JG
www.jerrygerber.com
 

You can only one view of the Track and Console views BUT, you can open up multiples of some other views (different technique than staff view) by locking one then opening another. See pg 1152 of Reference Manual.

Due to another thread I just remembered a useful and possibly obscure feature. I'm assuming it still works in X3 but it certainly did in X2 and it is super helpful for imported tracks. Snap Offset.
 
You can offset the Snap point of a clip by setting the Now Time > selecting the clip > Right Click > Set Snap Offset to Now Time. Now that point will snap to the grid instead of the beginning of the clip. The offset point will show a little arrow at the bottom of the Clip. To remove the offset select the Clip > open the Inspector (I) > select the Clips tab > in the Snap Offset section type 0
 
That one helped me anchor my tracks starting point to the grid on an old album I'm working. From there I could manually adjust the tempo to follow along. Not a big thing but sure useful.