GUI MouseZoneEditor
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Main Page > REAPER Documentation > Reaper Suggestions
Contents |
The Current State
Mouse functions can be configured to some extent. Some functions can be swapped, while others are hardcoded, as are the size of the areas on which they work. For example, the timestretch works by ALT+Left-clicking on the edges of the item. CTRL+Left-click+drag of a timeselection of a selected item will attach a copy of that piece to the mouse cursor and place it where you let go of the mouse button. What if you could change that.
The Problems
No matter how cool and clever a developer is, pleasing all is very difficult. Most folks had a similar complaint of all the DAWs that ever existed. They couldn't tell the DAW what their mouse should do. It was always the DAW telling them.
Also, people coming over from others DAWs face a difficult transition, as there is a lot of functionality to discover in Reaper.
Solutions
Let people change the mouse behavior to their desire. The Mouse Zone Editor would enable that in an easy to use fashion. Provide presets of mouse behaviors for people to start with that resemble their previous DAWs. And finally, let people see graphically what the mouse can actually do.
The way it works
Drag'n'Dropping The user picks up elements like mouse cursors, colours and functions, and just throws them on to the existing zones. Any zones the user requires but that don't yet exist can be created by dragged in from from the shape list.
Manual Selection and Editing The user clicks on one of the zones, it is highlighted, along with its chosen mouse cursor, function and colour, if it has them. These can be edited by clicking on other choices.
Sharing Sets and Zones The Actionlist showed that people do like sharing small action sets, so it may only natural to let users import and export Layers.
The Import and Export buttons in the Layers section lets you do that. The Zone Sets file operations are named "Open", "Save" and "Save As" because they save a set of all layers, which in turn contain the zones. These zone sets are documents, not snippets thereof, like single layers.
Mouse Cursors and File Operations
PNG files with transparency. Reaper would save these mouse cursors either in the zone set files, like it does with VST plugin presets, or save the zone sets as single layer files along with the mouse cursor graphic files, and perhaps even zip them up in to a .zoneset file, Open-Office-style. A directory and zoneset file with the name could be a good choice as well, similar to the colour themes. In that case, a central zone set file would point to all the needed files in a directory specified in the zone set file itself. All the relevant layer files would be stored there, which would also make it easier to separate and reuse them in other sets without having to use the editor.
Actions instead of Functions
The action list is pretty big, so it's a good idea to give the action list in the zone editor as much space as possible, when you're looking for something. Included in this update of the mockup is the filter textbox and an "Editor" button, which opens up the Action Window.
Size and Priority
What happens when the tracks are really small ? Here is where you set that up. You can give zones priorities, of which there are three: low, medium and top.
An example:
In the no-modifier Layer, the trim zones in the middle of the edges(one at each side of the item) should have always work. Thus you specify a minimum size of 40 pixels in height, and a minimum width of 20 pixels. There are other zones at the edge of the item such as those for the fades in the upper corners, and you give them a lower priority than the trim zones. Thus no matter what is set up in the other zones, the trim zones will always work. As the track gets smaller the other zones are covered by the trim zones, whose minimum size begins to cover the whole track height.
The mouse zone editor is discussed in this thread on the feature request forum: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=25077
The Proposed Design in a Picture
http://shup.com/Shup/58691/Mouse-Zone-Editor_raw9.png
Design by forum contributors of the above thread. Graphical representation and this article by Airon.
