Has anyone discovered a way to access the menus at the top of the Track View? Without using a mouse to open them? I have tried without success to create keyboard shortcuts, but these menus seem special in some way as they cannot be bound. I notice that the items in the menus have selection keys underlined, which is not much use it you MUST use a mouse to open them.
 
Frustrated,
 
James

james@blessingstead.com


Has anyone discovered a way to access the menus at the top of the Track View? Without using a mouse to open them? I have tried without success to create keyboard shortcuts, but these menus seem special in some way as they cannot be bound. I notice that the items in the menus have selection keys underlined, which is not much use it you MUST use a mouse to open them.
 
Frustrated,
 
James

Welcome James!
 
I just looked at the documentation for keyboard shortcuts and they all seem to be listed - - is there a specific command you don't see that you need?
 
Brian

james@blessingstead.com


Has anyone discovered a way to access the menus at the top of the Track View? Without using a mouse to open them? I have tried without success to create keyboard shortcuts, but these menus seem special in some way as they cannot be bound. I notice that the items in the menus have selection keys underlined, which is not much use it you MUST use a mouse to open them.
 
Frustrated,
 
James

If sonar is in focus ALT+F, ALT+E, ALT+I, ALT+P, ALT+J, ALT+U, ALT+W, ALT+H

Thank you, rebeach, for attempting an answer.  However, I was not referring to the Sonar main menu, but rather the View, Options, Track, Clips, MIDI, and V-Vocal menus at the top of the Track pane (They sort of look like a tabstrip, but don't act like one)
 
Perhaps Brian has made the same assumption, as the menus in question are definately NOT listed in the keyboard shortcuts interface. The individual items in the menus are, but my goal is to open the menus using the keyboard (Like I already knew you could do with the Sonar main menu)
 
James

I apologize again for poking some fun at your duplicate post.

I cruised through the doc for X2 and I also do not see what key binding would activate the drop down for example Tracks, at the top of the Track Pane.  Once the drop down is there, each option seems to have a shortcut key - hide a track etc., but I too wonder how one would get that Tracks drop down to occur without clicking on it with your mouse.  I always just click on it with the mouse and to be honest, I just use the mouse for whatever else I am doing while there, since I already used it to open the drop down.

I have no intention at this time of the steep learning curve I would have at learning bunches of key bindings, and while there might be one to do that, I will likely not ever know it.

Back in 8.5.3, the key bindings were an art form, and watching an accomplished engineer buzz through them always amazed me.

Then again, I still think the 3 Stooges are pretty funny.

Good luck on your quest.

Bob Bone

I just browsed through all of the X2 key bindings and unless I am an idiot (some restraint here would be nice folks), I cannot see how one would open any of those Track Pane menu drop downs without clicking with the mouse.

Link to X2 doc on Key Bindings: 

http://www.cakewalk.com/D...tes_KeyBindings.4.html

Here is the link to the X2 doc on shortcuts and such:

http://www.cakewalk.com/D...enus1.182.html#1124580

This is one of the times when jumping to conclusions can lead to embarrassment.

The OP had a good question that was dismissed and to a degree ridiculed.

There is a fundamental problem though. CW tried to have the same menu setup on every child window. I'm sure it was never intended that keyboard control would apply to them. If you have the PRV open in the dock and are viewing the TV which menu should open? One could say well its the one that has focus. But then if you are not using a mouse how then can one change focus? Sure it can be done with a keyboard and I think the reason the items in the menu are keybound is we still have keyboard control of those functions. The menu on the other hand may not need that.  

I don't think CW ever thought X1/X2 would be used without a mouse or some other pointing device anymore than they thought it would be used without an audio interface of some sort. 

james@blessingstead.com


Thank you, rebeach, for attempting an answer.  However, I was not referring to the Sonar main menu, but rather the View, Options, Track, Clips, MIDI, and V-Vocal menus at the top of the Track pane (They sort of look like a tabstrip, but don't act like one)
 
Perhaps Brian has made the same assumption, as the menus in question are definately NOT listed in the keyboard shortcuts interface. The individual items in the menus are, but my goal is to open the menus using the keyboard (Like I already knew you could do with the Sonar main menu)
 
James

I should have read your post a little more carefully. I don't know of a way to do what you want to do.

John


This is one of the times when jumping to conclusions can lead to embarrassment.

The OP had a good question that was dismissed and to a degree ridiculed.

There is a fundamental problem though. CW tried to have the same menu setup on every child window. I'm sure it was never intended that keyboard control would apply to them. If you have the PRV open in the dock and are viewing the TV which menu should open? One could say well its the one that has focus. But then if you are not using a mouse how then can one change focus? Sure it can be done with a keyboard and I think the reason the items in the menu are keybound is we still have keyboard control of those functions. The menu on the other hand may not need that.  

I don't think CW ever thought X1/X2 would be used without a mouse or some other pointing device anymore than they thought it would be used without an audio interface of some sort. 

Yeah, in this respect Sonar is a bit quirky... I mean, try clicking around on a console fader....you can get a dozen different pop-ups depending on where exactly you happen to click within that fader. Conventional design would be to to have something like a master popup for the control - and then just maybe, just maybe a few obvious (to the non-familiar user) specializations to would be be added to or rather, merged with that popup depending on obvious sub-targets, like the meter, i.e. But Sonar's pop-ups do not to seem use a layered menu-merging mechanism. A good example of a layer pop-up type of design would be Sony's Acid Pro or Vegas - if you've ever used those programs.


Sonar seems to act as if all it pop-ups were hand assigned to the windows that make up a control, rather than an automatic windowing system. Who knows, maybe they'll change it whenever they decide to go with a new code base...

Hi all,

Thanks Bob and John, for looking closely enough to see my problem. If no one else comes up with a miracle answer in a day or two then I'll just make it a feature request and keep my fingers crossed.

I like using a keyboard for whatever I can use it for. I went blind for awhile and really got used to a keyboard. Now that I have recovered my sight, I still prefer it. For me, this question is a matter of principle (lol) You shouldn't hide things in an interface when you don't have to. I would imagine the product group could easily add these menus to the keyboard shortcut list if they wanted to, and that would avoid the focus issue. I will survive till then, however.

James

PS: Sorry 'bout the duplicate thread! IE9 hangs when I post to this forum, complaining that cakewalk.com is not responding. So thinking I had failed to post...  Chrome seems to work fine.