Keep item color when glueing

[chumbo]

Currently, when glueing together several item of the same color, they are returned to the default grey color.

It would make sense to keep the same color of course!
Thanks,

[akademie]

Hi chumbo,
in fact, after glueing, they are not returned to default grey color, but rather to track color.
Try it. Example: Track=RED, 2 items each GREEN, make a glue and the new glued item will be RED ;-)

(If glueing items with different colors, that's exactly OK, I think. If glueing items which all share the same color, but different from track color, then it could keep the color of original items. Yeah. But on the other hand, it is much simpler to know that after glue it will always get the track color).

I have to say I do not have a preference in this behavior.

[chumbo]

Originally Posted by akademie

Hi chumbo,
...it is much simpler to know that after glue it will always get the track color).

Simpler than having the items keeping their original (and yes identical) color? Seems to me it doesn't get any simpler than that and makes more sense (to me anyway).
Had I wanted the items to be the same color as the track...I would have done so

Anyway, I learned something and for now, with what you told me, I can work around it by making sure track and items colors match but otherwise, I think it makes sense to not change the item color when glueing.

[akademie]

Originally Posted by chumbo

Simpler than having the items keeping their original (and yes identical) color? Seems to me it doesn't get any simpler than that and makes more sense (to me anyway).

As simpler I meant it like that it has no variants, just everytime it gets the track color, you know.
I did not want to degrade your request in any way, for sure. (I also wrote it, that in the exact case (all items with the same color) it could leave color intact)

[chumbo]

Originally Posted by akademie

As simpler I meant it like that it has no variants, just everytime it gets the track color, you know.

Yes, that's what I had understood you meant. I just meant that 'no change' would be even simpler and more logical because as I pointed out, if anyone wanted their item's color to change, they would have probably done it beforehand, hence the change when glueing is annoying.
Because even if I now know it will do that every time, I still every time don't want it to do that!

Anyway, it's now in the hands of the dev to decided if it makes sense or not.

[J Reverb]

Try this script for keeping color when glueing stuff.
It gets the first selected items color and applies that color to the glued result.
Hope it helps, this was driving me mad also..

[chumbo]

Thanks J Reverb!! Works perfectly

Glad to hear you share my annoyance as well!
I still have a hard time believing this was deliberate...or why? Why would anyone prefer this behavior to having the items keep their color!?

More likely they didn't pick up on this behavior while coding and testing it.
(if it was tested with all item colors to their default grey, you would never notice this of course)

However, that's the beauty of Reaper! As much as we'd all prefer to have things taken care of natively, if it isn't, resourceful and capable users can just write a script to solve their issues!

I noticed another odd behavior when glueing two items that are in 'Free item positioning' on one track (using Reaper's native glue action):
It not only greys out the item but it MOVES it down below the other item??
Same kind of thing, I can't believe this was intentional, too weird.

Harder to explain that to show:



Another minor annoyance is, you'll notice that the color gradient doesn't change when empty items are selected. So no way to tell if an item is selected or not??

[J Reverb]

There is an action 'Item: Auto-reposition items in free item positioning mode' but I can't seem to find a pref to disable this as it seems to be active by default? It might be something to ask the dev's for as it totally makes sense.
If you are using this feature you need to ignore time selection when glueing.
Try this for lanes and FIP

[chumbo]

Originally Posted by J Reverb

...Try this for lanes and FIP

You must spend your day helping people in the forum because you already forgot you offered me the very same script for the very same problem but that I had posted in another thread a few hours ago!
Thanks again

Edit: well, almost identical script