MIDI editor: Many actions that refer to "all" events do not affect editable takes

[juliansader]

There are about two dozen actions for the MIDI editor that refer to "all" events in their names. The meaning of "all" is however inconsistent, and may mislead new users:

For example, the following two actions affect events from ALL (editable) tracks:
* Edit: Select all CC events in time selection (even if CC lane is hidden)
* Edit: Unselect all

Whereas these three affect only events in the ACTIVE track:
* Select all CC events
* Edit: Select all notes
* Unselect all CC events

I think it would be helpful if the names of these actions could be updated to make their effect and scope clearer.

[juliansader]

The inconsistencies actually go much deeper than just those actions that refer to "all". Some examples are quite curious:

* "Quantize..." affects all editable takes, whereas
* "Unquantize..." affects only the active take

~ "Split notes" and "Split notes at mouse cursor": all editable takes
~ "Split notes on grid": only active take

# "Invert voicing upwards/downwards": all editable takes
# "Invert (reverse vertically) all notes": only active take

- "Delete notes": all editable takes
- "Delete all notes of less than...": only active take

I suspect that actions that are limited to the active take are mostly legacy actions from the years when REAPER's MIDI editor was not yet capable of multi-track editing.

The hard way to solve these inconsistencies would therefore be to update the code. The easy way would be to simply change the names of the actions.

I have compiled a stripped-down Language Pack that appends either "(active take only)" or "(all editable)" to most of the MIDI Editor actions, in order to make their effects and scope clearer. Other users who may find this helpful, can download it from the stash and install it like a normal Language Pack. (Please let me know if there are any errors.) EDIT: The Language Pack can now also be installed through ReaPack.


P.S. I haven't appended anything to the following actions since I am unsure what they actually do:
- Delete trailing notes of less than ... note in length
- Freeze quantization
- Double length of MIDI (repeating contents)
- Remove selected duplicate events

[juliansader]

Bumping this, three years later.

Actions that do not work on all editable takes can be quite a headache when working with multiple tracks.

Over the past three years there have been several other bug report threads that report individual actions that don't work with all editable takes, and some of these have thankfully been fixed/upgraded, but the problem requires more than a piecemeal approach.

[mccrabney]

it keeps me from using anything beyond basic actions in the midi editor.

i often suggest to consider the same workflow problems as if they were present when editing same track audio items. can you imagine the frustration if actions applied to multiple selected track audio items only worked on the first audio item clicked?

because that's what we have now in the midi editor.

"end the active/inactive item discrepancies"

[EvilDragon]

It will be a beautiful day when devs decide to buckle down and just make all actions work on all editable items...

[ovnis]

Inside the midi editor, distinction between active and inative items should not exist. Simpler and faster...

[dangguidan]

In the current situation, the most powerful script can only handle the current take. The editing of multi track MIDI data has always been just needed.

[Jeremy Gillam]

Has this gotten any attention in the intervening years? It seems not, but maybe I'm missing something. I have "Avoid automatically setting MIDI items from other tracks editable" unchecked. Native actions seem to affect all selected MIDI notes in the MIDI editor, but scripts only work on the "target" MIDI item.

[mccrabney]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Gillam

Has this gotten any attention in the intervening years?

not that we can tell, though a bone was tossed to scripters via reaper.MIDIEditor_EnumTakes(). if you want to be sure that all of your so-called "editable" MIDI is actually subject to the edits you intend to make, your only choice is to rebuild the incomplete native action set with scripts that can handle multiple takes, as expected.

Native actions seem to affect all selected MIDI notes in the MIDI editor

keep trying different native actions and you'll find that many of them only work on the selected notes in the "active" item, for example "Edit: Move events left/right (mousewheel/MIDI relative only)"

but scripts only work on the "target" MIDI item.

it depends on the script, and whether the script writer has accounted for editing multiple takes or not. lots of scripts only target one take at a time. some others don't.

[Jeremy Gillam]

Thanks for the helpful information mccrabney. Hopefully the MIDI editor will get some attention soon (razor edits!)