#452 Cursor Playback Behavior Options

[beatboxa]

It would be nice to have a:
-"Return Cursor to Playback Start Position" option, and
-a Toggle for <space> to mean either "Play/Stop" or "Play/Pause".

This way, users can set up playback to their preferences. Various audio tools (Audio Editors, DAW's, MIDI Sequencers) have different playback cursor behavior. Rosegarden should allow some refined options for playback to give users a consistent feel across various tools (or a given user's preference).

Today, cursor position doesn't seem intuitive to me; nor do a few of the keyboard shortcuts.

For example, today, hitting <Ins> to Stop appears to stop playback, but does not return the cursor until a user hits <Ins> a second time in succession. If a user pauses (with space) in-between, the cursor returns to the last paused position instead of the original position that was originally selected by the user. My expectations would be "Stop" means "Stop & Return", while "Pause" means "hold position but do not update the 'Return' position for when I hit 'Stop' later". I've always considered the distinction between "Pause" and "Stop" to be "Stop means stop & return", while pause means "Stop but don't return".

Ideally, I'd like to be able to hit <space> to begin playback, and then <space> again to:
-Stop Playback & Return the cursor to the original position I selected (ie. bind <space> to "Play, Stop, & Return Cursor", rather than "Play & Pause"). To me, this makes playback much more streamlined, and I can practice playing a track several times (and restarting by simply hitting space twice) prior to recording.

I've tried using Rosegarden several times over the past few years; and as simple as it sounds, this behavior has prevented me from really embracing the tool--it's frustrating when I have to reach for my mouse or hunt for the Insert key just to restart playback.

[beatboxa]

See #448...seems another user is requesting similar functionality (but with mouse as well as keyboard).

[Ted Felix]

See also [feature-requests:#448] and [feature-requests:#412].

[Ted Felix]

See SequenceManager::m_lastTransportStartPosition which appears to be a failed attempt at implementing the "return" part of this.

[Ted Felix]

Actually, m_lastTransportStartPosition works just fine. Press the stop button while stopped and the playback position pointer will return to the last start position. So, we already have the "return" feature.

[beatboxa]

Is this two different buttons and two different presses?
What I have requested is a single button (ideally space) that toggles between play & stop/return, which is a standard behavior on many audio/video applications.

[Ted Felix]

Understood. Just some random thoughts as I was digging around to see what we can currently do. I kind of missed your original point. At any rate, I'd like to see this too. Maybe we should focus on just offering stop/play/pause/record related keyboard customization. That would probably be a relatively simple and small task to focus on. Then that can expand out into a more complete keyboard shortcut feature as we have time. Anyway. Pretty low on the priority list, so don't hold your breath.

In [r15482] we just added Ctrl+Space to go directly into record. Hopefully that's handy for someone.