BobF
I don't always want a centered, stationary Now Time, but when I do, I want it to work like this:
(the proximity of the loop marker is coincidental)
Ya, man. Totally what I was referring to in the OP with the fancy extra options to set WHERE and HOW the smooth scrolling occurs.
Nuendo allowed this (which was my previous DAW... totally ancient version). It had an option that did almost EXACTLY that. Instead of centereing the Now Time as soon as Smooth Scrolling Playback occured you could set it so if the cursor was totally off screen to the left it would stay of screen, the screen/clips would stay stationary and ONLY when the Now Time reached the center of the screen would Smooth Scrolling engage.
HOWEVER that was the CENTER of the screen. What I would like, as your image implies, is the ability to set that "center" left or right by a % value. So in you image the "Center" where Smooth Scrolling engages is probably at about 50% to the right (0% being centered and if scrolling occured an equal distance to the left of center in your image then that would be 50% left).
As noted that allows ultimate control for watching the waves for editing.
BTW there was, IIRC, separate options for automatic Smooth Scrolling from center that would auto jump the screen to the center as well (instead of letting the Now Time to roll on screen before scrolling occurred at center).
Just Smooth Scrolling itself is obviously popular as this is one of the top voted requests (thanks doods/doodettes) but Cake could REALLY max this bugger out with ultra control like that.
AND as I was saying to Mr Ampfixer up thar ^^^ if we got a speed variable shuttle control to go along with this (where we can slow down playback like we can with the Scrub tool except with a dial or parameter input so that speed is CONSTANT) then acutally ANOTHER serious request of mine regarding "Wave Editing" would become less important....
because if I can SLOW DOWN playback while listening back AND have centered smooth scrolling (or Smooth Scrolling set to where and how I want it to occur) THEN it makes zooming WAY into a wave file, playing it back to watch for the split second problem areas I want to manipulate/remove and then using automation or Split/Cut/Remove/X-Fade procedures or whatever to "heal" my changes possible WITHOUT a crazy wave editor that actually mucks about with the printed wave/transients.
ALL of this is currently in the code anyway via the Scrub tool (slow down/speed up) and all those split/automate/heal functions are standard editing procedures...
The ONLY thing missing is the Smooth Scroll to visually scan the waves where the edits need to occur and the "set it/forget it" speed "Scrub" control (which could be a Control Bar module).
Oh my goodness I'm getting myself all in a fluster.
I do seriously hope the Bakers are watching this one and digging into the code to make it happen. It really would make Sonar kick about a MILLION times more azz than it currently does.
I'll shut up now.
lulz...