Re: [Buzztard-devel] tracker gui

[Stefan K. <en...@ho...>]

Hi Tommi,

Am Donnerstag, den 11.05.2006, 23:49 +0300 schrieb Tommi Sakari Uimonen:
> Hi,
> 
> First things first:
> 
> Great to see this project happening!
> 
> Then businness. I read from the wiki pages that the widget for tracker ui 
> is not yet selected.
> 
> Has anyone tried Tutka (http://www.nongnu.org/tutka/)? It has 
> gnome-based tracker widget and is fairly usable and fast. But it is GPL 
> and I don't know if it can be used in LGPL project.
> 
It cannt be used then:( Thanks a lot for the pointer still. Fortunately
I have spend lots of time to push the current implementation (nned to
update the wiki). It starts to look good. Improving the keybinding is
still todo, but I've some ideas to do it. Unfortunately I am quite busy
doing all this alone (core engine, soft-synths, gui, ...). Anyone who
feels like helping is definitely welcome.
>
> But whatever tracker ui you choose, it should be fully keyboard 
> controllable so users can use it mouse-free if they wish to. Not that 
> mouse shouldn't have any control, but as long as all mouse based 
> operations can be done from keyboard. (This goes for menus etc. too.)
> 
> Personally, I think that the only usable thing in mouse is the wheel.
> With good ui design it can be made in to a powerful asset. For instance 
> used with modifiers - Shift,Alt and Ctrl - and their combinations, wheel 
> can have 7 different actions. And it is fast to operate. It could be used 
> for sliders, instrument changing, moving around pattern/song, transposing 
> etc. But what comes to 'classic' mouse usage; point and click and drag, it 
> is awfully clumsy and slow to do any serious composing (at least fast enough)
> 
Yes, all this needs some careful thinking. This is one thing where also
non developers can help. Whats the preferred key/mouse actions for all
this. I tend to be quite keyboard centric when I make music. So I'd like
to have shortcuts for all things (like selections, blending parameters
in selections and so on).
> The only thing that I _might_ do with mouse, is selection. But skillful 
> 'trackerer' handles the selection equally fast with keyboard, if we count 
> also the time to move hand from keyboard to mouse and back.
> 
> 
> Tommi Uimonen
>
Tommi, are you a developer (experience with gtk+?). Do you like to help?
If you want access to the wiki, I can create an account for you. There
you can work out a proposal for actions + shortcuts as a table.

Ciao
  Stefan