Re: [Audacity-devel] Feature requests from a user

[DG M. <dg...@yo...>]

On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, Anthony Airon Oetzmann wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:47:50 +0000 (GMT), DG Malham wrote:
> 
> >Still, I have a manual gathering dust somewhere and will scan the stuff in
> >over the weekend. Probably even got the code on an Atari backup tape and
> >we might still have a working Atari to run it on - but I don't think we
> >want to even look at Atari Lattice C and 68k assembler ;-)
> 
> Heh. The keymap will suffice with a couple of notes. Who knows? If we
> get definable shorcuts for the most common functions, this could turn in
> to a realy cool collection of keymaps. I can't wait to start testing
> this kind of stuff. 
> 

Good grief, I actually managed to find that manual immediately. I put
together a web page with the info on it to avoid overloading the mail -
the url is;

http://www.dmalham.freeserve.co.uk/soundmaestro.htm

it has over 100k of image file, since I put a scanned image of the
SoundMaestro screen on it, as well as a table of keyboard short cuts.
Obviously this list shows some conflicts with existing uses of function
keys in the different systems (Linnux/Mac/Windows/Irix etc) but I thik we
should use the spirit rather than the letter of these things.

	Dave
> 
> >> I suppose Pre- and Postroll is a nice feature to have to some advanced
> >> recording sessions and editing. The coders are the poor saps that have
> >> to implement this though. 
> 
> >Probably not too difficult - it's just like playing a (Mouse selected) 
> >region except the start and stop points are generated from the current
> >marked point when the hotkey is pressed, by a code frgment like
> 
> >start_point = mark_point - preroll_amount;
> >stop_point = mark_point + postroll_amount;
> >rather than worked out from the screen coordinates.
> 
> What do the coders think of this ? It sounds rather simple to me, but who am I
> to judge :).
> Anyone want to try this ?
> 
> 
> >> Any info you have on pro and con of a good control path is very welcome.
> >> Hmm. What would you want from a simple keymap ? I had a strange thought of
> >> context sensitive keymaps. Editing & recording for one.
>  
> >Not sure about context sensitive keymaps - I think its probably best
> not >to switch meanings if what you are trying to do is make some
> frequent >operations faster - the last thing you want to be doing is
> trying to >remeber what context you are in. hotkeys really need to end
> up buried in >muscle memory (as ctrl-C crtl-V and a few others are)
> rather than needing >concious thought. Calrec spent a fortune developing
> an 'assignable' mixing >console which had just enough controls for a
> mixing engineer to be able to >deal with with two hands without moving
> (essentially two channel strips >worth). All the controls were
> assignable so that at one moment they could >be controlling input
> channels, at the next the master mix or the monitor >mix or the sub mix
> or the tape returns or whatever. Nice idea, having a >physically small
> console control surface which would handle a masive mix >but it proved
> an ergonomic disaster and was subsequently dropped. 
> 
> Good that you mentioned this. That's one path we won't have to travel down.
> 
> Logic Audio crams all the navigation and playback in to the numeric
> keybad, with SPACE added for start/stop. Recording happens with the "*"
> on the numeric keypad. A loop can be set in a seperate timeline and "0"
> on the keypad jumps to the start. There's a settable preroll to
> recording, which I think is important to have. 
> 
> Vegas handles recording via CTRL+R, same as Soundforge. Protools is
> COMMAND + Space, F12 or "3" on the numeric keypad if the keypad's in
> transport mode. The keypad seems to be the only switchable key region in
> Protools. The other mode's 'Shuttle'. I never touch it, so I don't know
> how practical that is. 
> 
> So we have a few other system's choices at hand. Any other suggestions
> for this ? 
> 
>  Tony
> 
>