Selection Cursor

[Viente]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

although it is not shown as such in licecap, i am pretty sure what is shown in licecap will work accross tracks, as the marquee will select any items beneath it, and the time selection will cut accross tracks as long as those items are selected, at least i do believe that's how it's been programmed.

it is a simple solution to something that would otherwise be very complex to implement. that's the reaper way.

sure thing! And im not really sure now if the time slection should be overlay only selected tracks. It works as nice guidelines to grid and other items. And you can make it more contrast and different color. Its just my taste

[IMG]http://img6.**************/img6/2150/edits2.gif[/IMG]

[Sound asleep]

if you wanted to cut only select tracks and skip a few, it could be done relative quickly, but you'd have to make a time selection, then go over to tracks, then select the tracks you want, then make action "select all items in selected tracks + cut all items at time selection" or however they word it. i mean, it would be a couple more steps, but you would need that no matter what if that's what you were trying to do. which actually would be a cool functionality now i think of it.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by Viente

sure thing! And im not really sure now if the time slection should be overlay only selected tracks. It works as nice guidelines to grid and other items. And you can make it more contrast and different color. Its just my taste

[IMG]http://img6.**************/img6/2150/edits2.gif[/IMG]

here is a question i kind of assumed as well, but you can get this functionality to snap to grid right?

[Viente]

Of course it snaps to grid

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by Viente

Of course it snaps to grid

ya, that's what i figured that it must. idk. seems pretty awesome to me. just not sexy looking.

[Transputer]

Bumping this too.

Thanks in advance.

[Viente]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

ya, that's what i figured that it must. idk. seems pretty awesome to me. just not sexy looking.

You can customize colors and blend mode of marquee selection box etc...

[sonnie]

Area selection would be great, that will help a lot in my workflow

[Shan]

Bump for some non-contiguous area selection love.

Shane

[airon]

555 votes

Bring out the beer, set off the fireworks, but don't pop the champaign corks just yet.

[Viente]

I have a question, how this would interact (visualy) with time selection?

[Shan]

Originally Posted by Viente

I have a question, how this would interact (visualy) with time selection?

Probably no different than the current time selection and zoom selection interacting visually:



The current zoom that we have is an area selection. Unfortunately, this area selection can only perform a zoom action for now. Everything exists in REAPER to make a separate area selection as found in many other DAWs. A non-contiguous area selection is a different story. Visual details like this usually get sorted out by the theme team during beta testing. I'm sure there is more than one way they can tackle the visual element of anything that overlaps...plus we'll always be able to theme this stuff.

Shane

[Shan]

As mentioned in this old thread awhile back, REAPER has the component parts to create a good foundation for area selection. The development cycle on the other hand would probably take quite some time.

Visually, we can do it today:

[img]http://img20.**************/img20/9822/areaselection.gif[/img]

...there's just know way to make it functional without getting into the code. I'm certain we'll get it at some point.

Shane

[djjedidiah]

Anybody from Cockos want my copy of Pro Tools? I'm dead serious. Pro Tools is still king of editing, and you can learn a lot about speed just by using it. Cockos should really just start by copying PT and then innovate based on that. I only left PT because of crash-prone legacy code and sucking hard with virtual instruments.

[airon]

You may wish to write to them via support at cockos dot com to make that offer.

They know all about that by now but it can't hurt to have a copy of it handy I suppose. Then again, they can get a trial version as well.

We've sent in videos demo'ing what Protools does well(because it does a lot of things less well than Reaper) a number of times. I'm pretty sure they know how serious everyone is about this issue by now. Every vote and every statement proclaiming the value of this editing method is welcome of course, but if anything should be part of Reapers future, we've made our point that this is a big one.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by djjedidiah

Anybody from Cockos want my copy of Pro Tools? I'm dead serious. Pro Tools is still king of editing, and you can learn a lot about speed just by using it. Cockos should really just start by copying PT and then innovate based on that. I only left PT because of crash-prone legacy code and sucking hard with virtual instruments.

They have a copy.

Shane

[airon]

Time to reflect here on how Reaper can achieve what Area Selection asks to do with what Reaper already has or which can be easily modified to behave like Area Selection.

Selecting Items and Space around them

• Starting a time+item selection inside an item is possible by changing a mouse modifier for the context Media Item left-drag to Marquee Selection Items / Set Time Selection (which combines those two)
  
  If you want to keep moving items with Left-drag, you can either set the Media Item bottom half context to this action, or use the the Media Item bottom half context for the Marquee Selection Items / Set Time Selection method. I prefer to keep it similar to Protools, so I did it the previous way (time+item selection Media Item, move item on Media Item bottom half).
  
  
• Starting a time+item selection outside an item is possible by changing the mouse modifier for the context Track left-drag to Marquee Selection Items / Set Time Selection (which combines those two)
  

By default it is then possible to glue an area as defined by the item and time selection, across as many tracks as you have items selected.

It is not possible to glue an empty area this way. This requires placing an Empty Item (Insert / Empty Item on selected track) and then glueing that. This is one small shortcoming when comparing it to the smarter Area Selection method which can include not only one area, but several.

Selecting Envelopes

Here we stumble on a big shortcoming, which however can probably be fixed quite easily.

When Left-Dragging in an envelope lane, it is not the Envelope Lane Left-Drag context that is used, because there is no context of that kind.

Instead, the Track Left-drag context is used. If a user has set that to create a time+item selection, this means that an area-selection-like behaviour of selecting all envelope points within point A to point B of a lane will not happen.

By default the Track Left-drag context is set to Select Time. This method performs the necessary function, but has to be sacrificed if area-selection-like behaviour is to be achieved for the item area.


Selecting across multiple envelope lanes is not possible. This is a central shortcoming and will cost the user time when simply wanting to remove envelope points across envelope lanes or tracks.

[run, megalodon]

airon, unless I'm missing something, starting a time+item selection inside an item is posible with the default modifiers by using alt+right drag. It works starting outside an item as well. Then you can still move items with left drag.

Why would you want to glue an empty area? You would just get a silent item, right?

[airon]

Lots of reasons. Sound design especially when I'm rendering complex effects and twisting things around.

The "ALT + Right-click drag" is a two hand operation. If you do an operation several thousand times a day, you want to cut back on unnecessary actions. Protools does this with left-click and drag, as does Studio One in a multi-tool environment(not single tool like Cubase).

So left-drag cuts back on work.

[run, megalodon]

Originally Posted by airon

Lots of reasons. Sound design especially when I'm rendering complex effects and twisting things around.

The "ALT + Right-click drag" is a two hand operation. If you do an operation several thousand times a day, you want to cut back on unnecessary actions. Protools does this with left-click and drag, as does Studio One in a multi-tool environment(not single tool like Cubase).

So left-drag cuts back on work.

Gotcha. I hope we get this...

One thing I would like to see is a way to copy and paste all the items that are in an area without cutting off the edges the are outside the area. So if I had a drum beat made of samples on the timeline with a snare sample that hit on the last 16th note of the last bar and extended outside the bar, I could just highlight the bars of the pattern and hit ctrl+d and easily duplicate that pattern starting on the next bar without losing the end of my snare sample.

[airon]

Hey does this need a bump or what.

It's been almost four years now and 580 votes. Keep 'em coming, 'cause we're not giving up.

[buckman]

bump bump Yes!

[heda]

we are at 594...
6 votes only to 600.. that's when Cockos will announce a surprise release with Area selection I'm pretty sure

[sonnie]

Originally Posted by heda

that's when Cockos will announce a surprise release with Area selection I'm pretty sure

This day, my friend, will be the one, Logic and PT will be erased permanently from my computer.

[airon]

Including the Multitrack editing improvements - Extended edit groups votes(405), we are actually just four votes away from 1000 for the top 2 voted requests.

[airon]

We've passed the

1000 vote mark for the combined voted for Area Selection and Edit Groups.

We're coming up on the four year anniversary for the posting of the Area Selection request. Edit Groups had its on May 8th.

That said, these requests were made to the Cockos boys quite some time before that. 1004 votes and counting. Keep 'em coming.

[sonnie]

Hopefully thats a sign to the devs.

[heda]

there must be inflation in the votes... 1000 votes in 2013 must be like 50 or 60 votes worth from 2009

congratulations airon. you do some great feature requests posts.

[mim]

I just hope the 4 people who would not use those features are not Justin, Christophe and Schwa !

I wonder if some parts of the recent changes for the midi editor additions (multiple items midi editing, multiple items CCs editing) might be reused for area selection ( a new way to access to data on the timeline not defined by items )...

[airon]

Let's recap what we have right now, because there are quite a few things that have been added over the last four years.

• Unambiguous display
  Not yet. You can however get used to it, which is a positive in what I perceive as a sometimes headscratching visual design.
  
  The cross-section of time selection and object selection was not designed to stand out enough.
  
  
• Multiple Non-Contiguous Area Selections
  Not yet. It's all still based around the time selection and object selections.
  
  
• Copying
  Works. The standard copy commands copy the cross section of object and time selection, if you setup the mouse modifier for it. The default of ALT+right-click selection was never the best choice. My guess is that the design forced it to be the only possible default, though of course not for Area Selection voters.
  
  
• Moving material
  Moving and thereby splitting material of a cross-section of the time and object selection works nicely. No complaints and it's available by default.
  
  
• Painting with the selection
  Not yet. And it may not be terribly practical across many tracks, which I hope Edit Groups could address.
  
  
• Automation
  Partially there. You can select a range, but there has to be an option in the preferences active that I seem to have overlooked recently.
  
  Copy and pasting this, including empty space in an envelope works, though it actually doesn't work by clicking in to the target envelope lane if you want to keep your edit cursor at the time it was at. You click on the envelop panel of the target envelope and then paste. That works.
  
  Across multiple envelope lanes we have nothing yet.
  
  
• Selections, now including space around items
  Partially works. It does work for the Glue function. It automatically considers the time selection. This does not yet apply to the "Render as new take" and "Apply FX" functions.
  
  
• Trim and Fades
  Nothing yet. You cannot make a time selection and expect to trim off the right side of the time selection yet. It works for the left side because that is usually where the edit cursor ends up.
  

As you can see, a lot of what we need is there, though the whole selection process is more convoluted if an area-selection-like behaviour is your goal.

That ambiguity is what area selection could resolve, if people can discover it easily and perhaps even find it in the default set.

The object + time selection approach has its strenghts in many areas, and I wouldn't want to miss it, but it took me a long time to get used to having ONLY this approach available. It isn't the only game in town, and I hope Cockos have realized that a fully realized area selection is so useful for its user base that they finally take on the challenge.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by mim

I just hope the 4 people who would not use those features are not Justin, Christophe and Schwa !

I wonder if some parts of the recent changes for the midi editor additions (multiple items midi editing, multiple items CCs editing) might be reused for area selection ( a new way to access to data on the timeline not defined by items )...

If there are only four then you'll be happy to know, there are only 3, because I couldn't be less interested in this.

[airon]

600 votes.

No reason to pop champagne corks, but it's encouraging. Two posts back I got through what Reaper actually already gives us, and what is does not yet give us. Check it out and post any further ideas or comments right here.

[airon]

Time for the bump in the night.

This could be part of the v5 extravaganza. One longing gaze in to my crrrrrystal ball, one hand presses against my forehead and the other outstretched, I see... I see!!! .... what do I see ?

Cockos thinking about it. Hopefully agonizing over it along with other various feature concerns, no doubt of great importance though how can they hope to gather this amount of support.

The legion of 613 have spoken and will stomp their feet again, and again until our humble moans are met with a dose of your and my favorite drug, new lines in a changelog.

+ Arrrrrea Selection implemented

[airon]

It's that time of the month again.

Vote if you haven't, but even more important, write down why you'd find this useful, right here in this thread. The devs will appreciate all good reasons for implementing this.

[mr_spine]

Originally Posted by airon

Bump. This is a basic editing feature that closes an important gap in the editing capabilities of Reaper.

Agreed. +100!

[nolman]

+1 .................

[buckman]

+10000 Airon

I've been wanting this for years too.. as I come from Soundforge and am *hoping* that are selection implements other fx and editing processing etc all in one go.

Even the basic Area Selection on the arrangement in Ableton Live is Sooo fast for moving blocks around - its so powerful now im used to it.

If Reaper did this for quick arrangements, and then took it to editing level, surely it would be amazing

[serr]

Well, lucky me. Looks like I jumped on board after this feature was implemented. It would have been hard to move from Protools to Reaper without it! (Even with the bug riddle disaster that Protools became.)

[airon]

Yeah, it may be that the devs think what is there is enough.

It took me a long time to get used to Reaper, so I don't think it's enough.

[airon]

The bi-monthly bump's is coming up.

4.5 years people. Light the fires and keep them stoked. Under our este(a)emed devs behinds.