The Navigator Needs Your Lovin'

[foxAsteria]

I love the navigator, but she's been feeling a bit neglected and ignored in recent years. Here are the top improvements I'd like to see (suggest your own and I will add them as well):

1. Customizable "view finder" (it can be pretty hard to see where it is without moving it, at times)
- Border thickness
- Overlay opacity and tint

2. Option to hide Markers and Regions
- Optional 'region end' line (with many regions, one cannot tell which lines are region start or end in the navigator)

3. Filled regions (tinted areas inside the region, much like the Time Selection; would also be helpful to have filled regions in the Arrange)

4. Separate options in the Theme Tweaker for those sharing the same setting
- Selected item border (Navigator and media label (Arrange) share color settings
- (there are a few more, will look up and add later)

5. Separate options for item color in Navigator and Background item color in Arrange (e.g. can't use track color for items in Navigator and custom item background colors in the Arrange at the same time)

6. Optional display of region/marker names at top of Navigator (why not have labels visible for regions in the Navigator, since the lines are otherwise fairly meaningless?)

7. Tinted (red or custom) track lanes for Armed Tracks (so we can always see if multiple tracks are armed)

8. Optional track names dispayed (at least the name could be floated as a tooltip when hovering the mouse)

9. Option to show/hide Hidden Tracks in the Navigator (despite the settings for the Arrange or Mixer)

10. Tinted Track Lanes (for track color, so we could see both track color and custom item color at a glance)

11. Ensure all the lovely features get documented

12. Add the Previous/Next View/Scroll Position actions to the context menu (so that it's obvious we can use them to undo view changes made in the Navigator)

13. Direct Item Selection (maybe ctrl+alt+shift+right-drag to marquee select items directly)

14. Snap navigator and arrangement view to [full] tracks (The view often ends up showing half or a bit of a track control panel at the top and bottom of the arrangement view *airon*).

15. Allow dragging edge of navigator's active-view-area for single-direction-only zooming *cubic13*


I will research past navigator requests and collect them here. Lemme know your thoughts. Please give the Navigator your love and if you haven't yet discovered the easy of getting around your big projects that this feature already provides, do yourself a favor and hit ctrl+alt+v, then dock her somewhere safe...

[Lokasenna]

I never use it, myself, but I'll give a thumbs up just because the Navigator looks and feels like it's been forgotten for a few versions.

[airon]

To me these look like a good set of ideas for improving the navigator.

The arming status in particular seems like a good idea, though only if your arrangement window is very small.

The navigator is used very rarely on my work machine. My track counts are more in the dozens than hundreds. Even when I'm mixing dialogue for a film (usually 1500-2000 files and 3000-6000 items) I rarely get lost. I use colour coding for the tracks.

However when I use the navigator, item colours would be welcome since they are often used to indicate sectioned off material or special items. They're invisible in the navigator last I checked.

I'd like to add a request to your list if you don't mind.

Snap navigator and arrangement view to tracks

The view often ends up showing half or a bit of a track control panel at the top and bottom of the arrangement view.

This may seem nice but leads to rather chaotic displays that I have to readjust to every time I scroll/move the view up or down.

When scrolling with the mouse wheel the view is scrolled in track height increments, but it's very easy to spoil.

[foxAsteria]

Originally Posted by airon

The navigator is used very rarely on my work machine. I use colour coding for the tracks.

However when I use the navigator, item colours would be welcome since they are often used to indicate sectioned off material or special items.

We can have item colors now. You just have to set the media preference to use item colors for background. I also color code my tracks, and mostly use the navigator to get to the track type I want at the play cursor, so I don't have to scroll and scroll. So I prefer to just use track color on items in the navigator.

But how are you getting around in arrangements that big without it??

Good suggestion. I've added it to the list.

[rstockm]

I'd like to support this request. It's really puzzling why different elements share the same color settings, it makes theming reaper quite a challenge.

Why, oh why, are the *borders* of items in the navigator the same color as the *peaks* of the items? it just makes no sense, and if you're using white peaks, it makes quite a mess in the navigator:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...chall/nav1.png

And it gets even more confusing: if you select *all* items, it looks way better:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...chall/nav2.png

So we need some extra slots for the navigator in the color theming window.

[Masi]

Originally Posted by foxAsteria

3. Filled regions (tinted areas inside the region, much like the Time Selection; would also be helpful to have filled regions in the Arrange)

Perhaps, but IMHO a horizontal bar as in the arranger is enough. Too much colours are confusing.

Originally Posted by foxAsteria

6. Optional display of region/marker names at top of Navigator (why not have labels visible for regions in the Navigator, since the lines are otherwise fairly meaningless?)

Perhaps there is not enough room for the names to make them default to "on". But I would opt for the ids of markers/regions to be visible all the time. The names can then be shown as tooltips.

Originally Posted by foxAsteria

8. Optional track names dispayed (at least the name could be floated as a tooltip when hovering the mouse)

Yes to tooltips due lack of space.

Originally Posted by foxAsteria

9. Option to show/hide Hidden Tracks in the Navigator (despite the settings for the Arrange or Mixer)

Should be a separate column in the track manager.

Is it possible to make the navigator appear to the left (or right) of the docked mixer?

Masi

[foxAsteria]

Originally Posted by Masi

Is it possible to make the navigator appear to the left (or right) of the docked mixer?

Yea, just hold ctrl while dragging on the tab (can be a very narrow line instead of full tab when docked in certain ways)

Originally Posted by Masi

Perhaps, but IMHO a horizontal bar as in the arranger is enough. Too much colours are confusing.

Colors are only confusing if they don't mean anything. If you use them always for the same things, they tell you all you need to know at a glance. But yea it can get ugly.

[chumbo]

Hi,
Great to see I'm not alone in loving and using the Navigator!

I'd like to see the ability to resize the Navigator by dragging it's right, left, top & bottom edges or corners.
And maybe a double-click to see the full project?

[DarkStar]

Make the item colours in the Navigator match those of the clips in the Arranger and the Navigator track backgrounds match those of the Arranger.

>>> https://i.imgur.com/xFuwuqe.png

[chumbo]

Navigator resizes tracks when you right-click and drag and change the selected area. I guess it resets it to the standard size...annoying.

[cubic13]

+1 for these : 1), 2), 6), 11) and 14).

I'm not sure of the other ones, as I would like the navigator to stay as simple as possible and at least, include these two :
- to be able to have an horizontal overview of a project, no matter its time size, with exactly the same colors as the arrangement ones (this, to ease the recognition of the items displayed in the navigator, selected or not).
- and more than anything, to be able to redimension the view frame without messing the vertical view already existing : this basic feature isn't even functional, making the whole navigator implementation useless, as it is now.

[foxAsteria]

Thanks for posting the suggestion here; I added it to the main list.

You already have the option to color the navigator based on the item colors (just like arrange), but some of the color options are shared with others, so it's not ideal and it's very hard to get a visible item selection without making compromises, which is why I requested those color options be separated.