0002755: New region look and colour coding proposal. - MantisBT

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0002755	ardour	features	public	2009-06-27 12:37	2010-07-21 02:34

Reporter	oofus	Assigned To
Priority	normal	Severity	feature	Reproducibility	N/A
Status	new	Resolution	open
Platform	Dell D830 core2duo T9300 2.5GHz	OS	Mandriva	OS Version	2009.1
Target Version	3.X

Summary	0002755: New region look and colour coding proposal.
Description	Proposal for new region colouring and look. Currently regions have a bar at the bottom that is coloured uniquely for each track. This seems to serve no purpose (the colour) other than to identify the track itself, and is visually quite distracting. Also the bar at the bottom of the region takes up vital waveform real-estate, especially when track heights are particularly small. The proposal starts by removing the region bar and extending the waveform to the complete height of the region. A bigger waveform for the same track height. This has three consequences. 1) there is now no active area to trigger region trimming. 2) Tracks are no longer colour coded. 3) The region name is not displayed. There are two proposed solutions to these problems. 1) Naming and Trimming: Do not really remove the region bar, but replace it with an invisible (transparent ?) bar that is not coloured but has the region name in it and is the active area to trigger the trimming tool. The waveform would just extend and be seen through the bar. 2) Regions would now be created with the default colours for waveform and background regardless of which track they are on. The current colours would remain for this. A hierarchical system of colouring would then be implemented to change the the background colour of a region to indicate something special like a bad take, or membership of a group etc. The colour hierarchy would start at the session (system?) level and would be inherited first by tracks and then by regions. This way it would be possible to change the colour of regions globally, track by track or region by region. Colour configuration. The preferences window would have a new config that would allow for a regions waveform and background to be set. This would be the default colours inherited by tracks and regions. The track header context menu would have a new item added called 'Colour'. This would then offer two further options 'Region Waveform' and 'Region Background'. Each of these two would give three further options, 'default', 'Group Colour' and 'custom'. Default would mean use the colours as set in the preferences window. Group Colour would mean use the colours as dictated by the route group config for the group that this track is in (Route groups would automatically be given a colour, as tracks are now). And Custom would allow the user to specify their own colour. Each regions context menu would also have a new item added called 'Colour'. This would then provide two further options 'Region Waveform' and 'Region Background'. Each of these would give four further options, 'default', 'Track Colour', 'Group Colour' and 'Custom'. Default would mean use the colours as specified in the preferences window. Track Colour would mean use the colour as specified by the track header settings. Group colour would mean use the colour as specified by the route group this region (and hence track) is in. And custom would allow the user to specify their own colour. Initially tracks would be set to 'Default' and regions would be set to 'Track Colour', thus everything inherits the colours as set in the preferences window. When a track is added to a route group the track settings would automatically be set to 'Group Colour'. When a track is removed from a route group it's setting would be automatically set back to 'Track Colour' Group colouring would change the region background to the group colour but leave the waveform as per the preferences window default. Benefits. The benefits of this proposal are: 1) Grouped tracks can be identified by the same region colours i.e. all drums are red, all BVs are blue etc. 2) Individual regions can be coloured to indicate something special like, 'needs work', 'bad take', 'edited version' etc. 3) Quick navigation when looking at the summary view. Any comments welcome.
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Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2009-06-27 12:37	oofus	New Issue
2010-05-21 16:35	oofus	Relationship added	related to 0002650
2010-06-23 08:49	oofus	Relationship added	related to 0003261
2010-06-23 14:48	oofus	Relationship added	related to 0003275
2010-07-21 02:34	cth103	cost	=> 0.00
2010-07-21 02:34	cth103	Target Version	=> 3.X
2011-07-24 22:34	paul	Relationship added	related to 0004224
2011-07-25 11:39	oofus	Relationship added	related to 0004064