Control Surface Integration (CSI) Technical Feature Discussion

[Funkybot]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Real long shot that it is a Windows thing, but please do test it out on Mac if all else fails.

I think I found the issue:

FocusedFXParam zone works exactly as expected if PreventFocosedFXParamMapping is setup to run OnInitialization.

Zone Home
OnInitialization PreventFocusedFXParamMapping
     IncludedZones
          "Buttons"
          "SelectedTrack"
     IncludedZonesEnd
ZoneEnd

But if you have this, the issues crop up.

Zone Home
/ OnInitialization PreventFocusedFXParamMapping
     IncludedZones
          "Buttons"
          "SelectedTrack"
     IncludedZonesEnd
ZoneEnd

...So in that case, when I launch Reaper the "FocussedFXParam" feedback button is set to on. Even though no FX have been focused and I haven't toggled the ToggleEnableFocusedFXParamMapping action. And when it defaults to On even though it's not actually on, pressing ToggleEnableFocusedFXParamMapping causes the feedback to go out of sync. Since this is a toggle, CSI should be defaulting it to off OnInitialization. I think that would fix it.

[Funkybot]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Actually the Rewind and FastForward actions do change the scrub settings a la the chinpou/MixMonkey hack, that's how they work, they are supposed to put things back when they are finished.

But I'm getting zero "scrub" with Rewind and FastForward actions in today's build. They just seek regardless of playback state. That's why I didn't think it made sense that they'd impact the scrub settings in Reaper. Why would they when they don't actually scrub. Maybe there's a bug?

The only time I get any kind of scrubbing is when I use ShuttleLeft and ShuttleRight. I personally think you should keep them, I just want them to obey the Reaper Scrub settings.

I'm defining "Scrub" as "hearing audio when I move the edit/play cursor" and "Seek" as "edit/play cursor moves with nothing audible".

I think what you had yesterday was almost perfect, it just needed a tweak. Yesterday's logic was:

Playback On:
Rewind and Fastforward seek

Playback off:
Rewind and Fasforward Scrub - obeying Reaper's scrub settings.

What I'm recommending is:

Playback On:
Rewind and Fastforward seek - obeying Reaper's scrub settings.

Playback off:
Rewind and Fasforward Scrub

Haven't tried ShuttleLeft/Right on the Jogwheel yet, but they may make sense there in a "Scrub" zone.

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by Funkybot

I think I found the issue:

FocusedFXParam zone works exactly as expected if PreventFocosedFXParamMapping is setup to run OnInitialization.

Zone Home
OnInitialization PreventFocusedFXParamMapping
     IncludedZones
          "Buttons"
          "SelectedTrack"
     IncludedZonesEnd
ZoneEnd

But if you have this, the issues crop up.

Zone Home
/ OnInitialization PreventFocusedFXParamMapping
     IncludedZones
          "Buttons"
          "SelectedTrack"
     IncludedZonesEnd
ZoneEnd

...So in that case, when I launch Reaper the "FocussedFXParam" feedback button is set to on. Even though no FX have been focused and I haven't toggled the ToggleEnableFocusedFXParamMapping action. And when it defaults to On even though it's not actually on, pressing ToggleEnableFocusedFXParamMapping causes the feedback to go out of sync. Since this is a toggle, CSI should be defaulting it to off OnInitialization. I think that would fix it.

Great detective work !

OK, anyone object to taking the easy way out and just eliminating PreventFocusedFXParamMapping altogether and setting it initially to false ?

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by Funkybot

But I'm getting zero "scrub" with Rewind and FastForward actions in today's build. They just seek regardless of playback state. That's why I didn't think it made sense that they'd impact the scrub settings in Reaper. Why would they when they don't actually scrub. Maybe there's a bug?

Not a bug, a scrub setting of 2 is what allows the cursor to travel without audio (seek), override the "Limit scrub rate to 1.0x", and perhaps a bunch of other stuff, that's what lets the cursor move along at a decent clip.

Internally each scrub mode actually does a bunch of different things, it's not anything like it appears in the settings...

[Funkybot]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Great detective work !

OK, anyone object to taking the easy way out and just eliminating PreventFocusedFXParamMapping altogether and setting it initially to false ?

I think since it's a toggle, that should be no problem.

[Funkybot]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Not a bug, a scrub setting of 2 is what allows the cursor to travel without audio (seek), override the "Limit scrub rate to 1.0x", and perhaps a bunch of other stuff, that's what lets the cursor move along at a decent clip.

Internally each scrub mode actually does a bunch of different things, it's not anything like it appears in the settings...

I'm going to admit that I'm completely lost here and what you're saying is going over my head. What does a "scrub setting of 2" mean? Where is that set?

And then you're saying "Internally each scrub mode"...where are these scrub modes? Is this in reference to that MixMonkey script or some internal API? The only scrub setings I have are these:

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by Funkybot

The only time I get any kind of scrubbing is when I use ShuttleLeft and ShuttleRight. I personally think you should keep them, I just want them to obey the Reaper Scrub settings.

I'm defining "Scrub" as "hearing audio when I move the edit/play cursor" and "Seek" as "edit/play cursor moves with nothing audible".

I think what you had yesterday was almost perfect, it just needed a tweak. Yesterday's logic was:

Playback On:
Rewind and Fastforward seek

Playback off:
Rewind and Fasforward Scrub - obeying Reaper's scrub settings.

What I'm recommending is:

Playback On:
Rewind and Fastforward seek - obeying Reaper's scrub settings.

Playback off:
Rewind and Fasforward Scrub

Haven't tried ShuttleLeft/Right on the Jogwheel yet, but they may make sense there in a "Scrub" zone.

Makes sense from outside, but as noted, internally things are very different -- it would take picking apart all of components affected and in what way by each scrub mode, then carefully assembling just the right components to do the "fast seek" part.

Given that we already have Rewind/FastForward and soon will have a Wheel version of Jog/Scrub, just wondering if all the effort is worth it, or whether it is better to simply use the combination of Rewind/FastForward buttons and the Wheel in appropriate mode to achieve the same thing...

[Funkybot]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Given that we already have Rewind/FastForward and soon will have a Wheel version of Jog/Scrub, just wondering if all the effort is worth it, or whether it is better to simply use the combination of Rewind/FastForward buttons and the Wheel in appropriate mode to achieve the same thing...

I'm totally on board there. If we have a wheel version of Scrub, then let's just keep rewind/fastforward working like you suggest, and use the wheel for scrubbing.

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by Funkybot

I'm going to admit that I'm completely lost here and what you're saying is going over my head. What does a "scrub setting of 2" mean? Where is that set?

And then you're saying "Internally each scrub mode"...where are these scrub modes? Is this in reference to that MixMonkey script or some internal API? The only scrub setings I have are these:

Yes, it's exactly as MixMonkey was saying, each mode sets/unsets/sets a value of some/all of the things you see on the screen.

For instance, there is no internal Reaper variable for "Limit scrub rate to 1.0x", that happens as a consequence of one or many of the internal mode number settings, I don't even know how many mode settings there are, so far I have tried 6 and they all alter different combinations of the things you see in that dialog, internally it is nothing like what you see.

Internally there are 4 variables, you can find them in Reaper.ini:
scrubloopend=0
scrubloopstart=-88
scrubmode=1
scrubrelgain=1.00000000

That's it, that's all


For the geeks, I'm guessing scrubmode is implemented as bit flags.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Yeah, then there's this -- Shuttle was a nice experiment, but it's too hard to make work for everyone without a bunch of complex tweaking complete with complex tweaking parameters, so let's bin it

Just a thought, and I have no idea of how you're coding this, but if you just made FFWD and REW move the edit cursor in exactly the same manner as Reaper Action 40647 (move cursor right to grid division) and made it repeat as long as the button is held down, then the buttons would function in exactly the same manner as my jog wheel. The "speed" is determined by the size of the grid and all the scrub settings (ie move cursor with audio) are determined by the Reaper prefs. No need to second guess the user.

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

Just a thought, and I have no idea of how you're coding this, but if you just made FFWD and REW move the edit cursor in exactly the same manner as Reaper Action 40647 (move cursor right to grid division) and made it repeat as long as the button is held down, then the buttons would function in exactly the same manner as my jog wheel. The "speed" is determined by the size of the grid and all the scrub settings (ie move cursor with audio) are determined by the Reaper prefs. No need to second guess the user.

Must admit, haven't thought this through thoroughly (wow quadruple alliteration) yet, but my initial vision for jogging/scrubbing would make use of both the Wheel and the arrows -- the arrows would do the division moves...

[Geoff Waddington]

OK, the proposal is to bin:
PreventFocosedFXParamMapping Action
Shuttle Actions

Going once, going twice...

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Must admit, haven't thought this through thoroughly (wow quadruple alliteration) yet, but my initial vision for jogging/scrubbing would make use of both the Wheel and the arrows -- the arrows would do the division moves...

I think they should both work exactly the same, except that the buttons repeat (at a preset rate) and the jog wheel just sends out press messages (that get faster the faster you turn).

I just wondered whether it was easier to approach it this way, as by moving the edit cursor by grid division allows the user to decide everything else, including the presence (or not) of audio.

Or maybe just a repeat modifier?....

[Freex]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

I think they should both work exactly the same, except that the buttons repeat (at a preset rate) and the jog wheel just sends out press messages (that get faster the faster you turn).

I just wondered whether it was easier to approach it this way, as by moving the edit cursor by grid division allows the user to decide everything else, including the presence (or not) of audio.

Or maybe just a repeat modifier?....

I agree (for what it's worth)

To me FWW REW should be "broad" strokes

Jog wheel "normal"

Scrub "fine"

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

I think they should both work exactly the same, except that the buttons repeat (at a preset rate) and the jog wheel just sends out press messages (that get faster the faster you turn).

I just wondered whether it was easier to approach it this way, as by moving the edit cursor by grid division allows the user to decide everything else, including the presence (or not) of audio.

Or maybe just a repeat modifier?....

Yeah, still shooting from the hip, I believe we will have to allow for some user custom tuning, doubt we can do a "one size fits all" thing here.

Maybe at least params for "delay before repeat onset" and "repeat frequency", and maybe a "multiplier" -- aka "how fast does it ramp up", anything else spring to mind ?

[edit] and maybe a seek/scrub to turn audio on and off.

Can we perhaps do a "best of" hits here and steal every good lick we can from PT, Cubendo, Logic, Ableton, etc. ?

[xeonblack]

Originally Posted by Funkybot

It sounds like an issue with MIDI Devices and MIDI Ports. Go look at your Reaper preferences for MIDI Devices, make sure the X-Touch and Extender are disabled. Then go into CSI and re-setup those devices. The Exp build uses a completely different CSI.ini so upgrading to the Exp build, might have updated the CSI.ini to Version 2.0, then when you downgraded back, your CSI.ini was the newer one, which is incompatible with 1.1 - but again, check your MIDI port assignment in both Reaper's preferences and CSI's.

I checked these settings, they are all right. I completely removed CSI EXP, reinstalled CSI 1.1 and still the controllers do not work.

Only the master fader on the main console works, the buttons also work, jog works.

[xeonblack]

Originally Posted by Funkybot

It sounds like an issue with MIDI Devices and MIDI Ports. Go look at your Reaper preferences for MIDI Devices, make sure the X-Touch and Extender are disabled. Then go into CSI and re-setup those devices. The Exp build uses a completely different CSI.ini so upgrading to the Exp build, might have updated the CSI.ini to Version 2.0, then when you downgraded back, your CSI.ini was the newer one, which is incompatible with 1.1 - but again, check your MIDI port assignment in both Reaper's preferences and CSI's.

When I loaded these settings, one fader started working. Apparently, the problem is in the mst file?

I checked the output from the controller via midi ox, everything works.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Yeah, still shooting from the hip, I believe we will have to allow for some user custom tuning, doubt we can do a "one size fits all" thing here.

I think you probably can The user has control over the grid size through Reaper Actions. If you have a fixed repeat rate and change the grid size, the progress of the cursor speeds up if the grid size is made larger and slows down if made smaller.

Maybe at least params for "delay before repeat onset" and "repeat frequency", and maybe a "multiplier" -- aka "how fast does it ramp up", anything else spring to mind ?

Maybe just start with repeat rate and see how it goes.

[edit] and maybe a seek/scrub to turn audio on and off.

We can try it out with those two scripts. Once you've settled on your scrub prefs, you can read the values from the Reaper.ini and you're good to go. Saves unscrambling their bit flags.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by xeonblack

When I loaded these settings, one fader started working. Apparently, the problem is in the mst file?

I checked the output from the controller via midi ox, everything works.

You haven't set a number of channels. If this is the CSI.ini created by the newer CSI version, delete it and restart Reaper. Then put the settings back in.

[xeonblack]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

You haven't set a number of channels. If this is the CSI.ini created by the newer CSI version, delete it and restart Reaper. Then put the settings back in.

Thank you so much for helping! Everything Works!

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

I think you probably can The user has control over the grid size through Reaper Actions. If you have a fixed repeat rate and change the grid size, the progress of the cursor speeds up if the grid size is made larger and slows down if made smaller.


Maybe just start with repeat rate and see how it goes.



We can try it out with those two scripts. Once you've settled on your scrub prefs, you can read the values from the Reaper.ini and you're good to go. Saves unscrambling their bit flags.

Cool, in case anyone hasn't guessed already, I rarely if ever use these features, so just tell me what to code and we'll do that

[Geoff Waddington]

Last call before we bin:
PreventFocusedFXParamMapping Action
Shuttle Actions

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Last call before we bin:
PreventFocusedFXParamMapping Action
Shuttle Actions

Good to go, I reckon.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Cool, in case anyone hasn't guessed already, I rarely if ever use these features, so just tell me what to code and we'll do that

How about having the FFWD and REW buttons move the cursor by grid division and making them repeat. Don't lose the FFWD and REW Actions you currently have.

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

How about having the FFWD and REW buttons move the cursor by grid division and making them repeat. Don't lose the FFWD and REW Actions you currently have.

Maybe use the Drop button to engage that SubZone ?

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Maybe use the Drop button to engage that SubZone ?

Could do, unless you fancied that record mode idea more for the Drop and Replace buttons?

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

Could do, unless you fancied that record mode idea more for the Drop and Replace buttons?

Don't remember that one, please remind me.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Don't remember that one, please remind me.

Reaper has 3 primary recording modes: Normal, Time selection auto-punch and Auto-punch selected items. I thought we could maybe use the Drop and Replace buttons to relect these (radio button style):
i) Both off: Normal
ii) Drop: Time selection auto-punch
iii) Replace: Auto-punch selected items

I got nothing for the 'Both on' combo

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

Reaper has 3 primary recording modes: Normal, Time selection auto-punch and Auto-punch selected items. I thought we could maybe use the Drop and Replace buttons to relect these (radio button style):
i) Both off: Normal
ii) Drop: Time selection auto-punch
iii) Replace: Auto-punch selected items

I got nothing for the 'Both on' combo

Ah yes, now I remember.

Here's my thinking on all things "recordy".

On the original EuCon project, and indeed, even in the first MCU implementation (MCUC4 IIRC), both almost a decade ago, I took the old school position of a console and a tape machine and spent an inordinate amount of time on mapping input setup, patching, all that stuff, to the surface.

Guess what, it mostly went unused.

I finally realized that the task of setting up for recording is very "mousey" by nature, that's how folks tend to do it.

Add to that the "thinking time" that goes into changing record modes, get it wrong and you can really mess things up, all that sort of stuff

Seems to me that you might want the visual feedback of a menu selection in that case.

Secondly, most everyone spends a lot more time these days on editing and mixing than on recording -- we don't cut straight to lathe anymore, instead we edit until there is not a breath of musicality remaining, then we mix until the meters don't move

Third point, most of the remaining CSI work is on timeline stuff, except for nudge, things are non destructive.

I don't know if this has anything to do with the current discussion of the recording modes, just an overall approach.

I'll shut up now

[Geoff Waddington]

New build is up.

CSI Exp.zip

Added feedback to GoSubZone and LeaveSubZone.

There is now a Marker SubZone defined as per our discussion.

Zone "Marker"
    Up			Reaper 40613	// Delete marker near cursor
    Property+Up		NoFeedback
    Down    		Reaper 40157	// Insert marker at current or edit position
    Property+Down	NoFeedback
    Right		Reaper 40173	// Go to next marker or project end
    Property+Right	NoFeedback
    Left      		Reaper 40172	// Go to previous marker or project start
    Property+Left	NoFeedback
    Zoom 		NoAction
    Marker		LeaveSubZone
ZoneEnd

[Geoff Waddington]

So, I know next to nothing about this next phase.

What do we need functionally for Nudge, Jog, and Scrub ?

We can talk about implementation and buttons later.

Right now just thinking about the requirements needed to make this the best control surface implementation of those concepts.

What would make your daily workflow easiest, most productive ?

Any and all ideas welcomed, as usual.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Ah yes, now I remember.

Here's my thinking on all things "recordy".

On the original EuCon project, and indeed, even in the first MCU implementation (MCUC4 IIRC), both almost a decade ago, I took the old school position of a console and a tape machine and spent an inordinate amount of time on mapping input setup, patching, all that stuff, to the surface.

Guess what, it mostly went unused.

I finally realized that the task of setting up for recording is very "mousey" by nature, that's how folks tend to do it.

Add to that the "thinking time" that goes into changing record modes, get it wrong and you can really mess things up, all that sort of stuff

Seems to me that you might want the visual feedback of a menu selection in that case.

Secondly, most everyone spends a lot more time these days on editing and mixing than on recording -- we don't cut straight to lathe anymore, instead we edit until there is not a breath of musicality remaining, then we mix until the meters don't move

Third point, most of the remaining CSI work is on timeline stuff, except for nudge, things are non destructive.

I don't know if this has anything to do with the current discussion of the recording modes, just an overall approach.

I'll shut up now

Fair points all. My suggestion was purely based on the fact that the two buttons were named "Drop" and "Replace", since you seemed keen to follow the existing legending.

Actually those recording modes are all available as Reaper Actions already (complete with nifty radio buttons).

When the "default" assignment set is complete for the XTouch and MCU, I think development should focus solely on things that can't be achieved with Reaper Actions.

That said I think there's certainly a case for building in stuff that can only be achieved using scripts, things like the scrub stuff, when we can figure out the best way to approach it.

At this point I think we have to be careful to continue to leverage stuff that Reaper already has, rather than re-invent it.

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

Fair points all. My suggestion was purely based on the fact that the two buttons were named "Drop" and "Replace", since you seemed keen to follow the existing legending.

Actually those recording modes are all available as Reaper Actions already (complete with nifty radio buttons).

When the "default" assignment set is complete for the XTouch and MCU, I think development should focus solely on things that can't be achieved with Reaper Actions.

That said I think there's certainly a case for building in stuff that can only be achieved using scripts, things like the scrub stuff, when we can figure out the best way to approach it.

At this point I think we have to be careful to continue to leverage stuff that Reaper already has, rather than re-invent it.

Fair points all right back at ya'

Especially agree we should leverage Reaper as much as possible without re-inventing the wheel (pun intended)

Speaking of the wheel, let me say once again, I approach recording very organically, and only cut, paste, nudge, etc. as a last resort, so I'm really relying on you good folks to drive this final feature set, I'm not kidding here, I really am in the wilderness on this phase.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

So, I know next to nothing about this next phase.
What do we need functionally for Nudge, Jog, and Scrub ?

By nudge, do you mean moving an arrange item on the timeline?

As far as Jog goes, I've been pretty happy controlling it with the grid size.

Scrub really just needs a way to turn the audio on and off whilst still retaining the other scrub prefs. I'm really haven't been a user of scrub, mainly because I couldn't turn the audio on and off easily. Now that I have those scripts, I can experiment a bit more.

One thing I discovered was that the scrubbed audio doesn't seem to be output via the track's channel, but direct through the master fader, leading to volume mismatches (I scrub the selected track). I really need to work with it more because at the moment I really don't know what the hell I'm doing

[Geoff Waddington]

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

By nudge, do you mean moving an arrange item on the timeline?

I guess so, that's what I thought it meant, but I could be totally wrong

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

As far as Jog goes, I've been pretty happy controlling it with the grid size.

Cool, good starting point.

Originally Posted by MixMonkey

Scrub really just needs a way to turn the audio on and off whilst still retaining the other scrub prefs. I'm really haven't been a user of scrub, mainly because I couldn't turn the audio on and off easily. Now that I have those scripts, I can experiment a bit more.

One thing I discovered was that the scrubbed audio doesn't seem to be output via the track's channel, but direct through the master fader, leading to volume mismatches (I scrub the selected track). I really need to work with it more because at the moment I really don't know what the hell I'm doing

All good to know.

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Speaking of the wheel, let me say once again, I approach recording very organically, and only cut, paste, nudge, etc. as a last resort, so I'm really relying on you good folks to drive this final feature set, I'm not kidding here, I really am in the wilderness on this phase.

I'm a mixer these days and even when I started using DAWs (circa1998) I was still recording to 2" and dumping it in for editing. So I'm not really going to be a lot of help on the recordery side of DAWs, so anyone who does a lot of live instrument/vocal recording needs to pitch in with ideas.

[chinpou]

Something I borrowed from Klinke's programming for my CSI setup, which I absolutely love, is the way he has it set up to control time/loop selection. That and a lot of other things about his programming I find to be very wise. I suggest taking a look at the klinke manual for consideration if you're trying to think of best ways to program the preset control surface templates.

https://bitbucket.org/Klinkenstecker...nke_manual.pdf

[MixMonkey]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

I guess so, that's what I thought it meant, but I could be totally wrong

No, you're not wrong. If you look through the Reaper Actions there's a ton of options, moving items, moving the edges of items etc. I can assign any of these to the jog wheel at the moment, the question is: when is it better to use the jog wheel on the surface and when is it better to use the mouse and keyboard.

In a similar fashion to your post about including routing and patching options and having them go unused, we need to think carefully about what's worth developing.

Another point about the jog wheel: Is there a need to support its original encoder output vs its current CW/CCW press hack? Does it have any other advantages?

[Geoff Waddington]

And veering off course yet again...

Just remembered we need to reserve 2 buttons somewhere for VCA spill and Folder Tracks...

[edit] Anyone remember how we did folder tracks, seem to remember using Reaper actions.

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington

Fair points all right back at ya'

Especially agree we should leverage Reaper as much as possible without re-inventing the wheel (pun intended)

Speaking of the wheel, let me say once again, I approach recording very organically, and only cut, paste, nudge, etc. as a last resort, so I'm really relying on you good folks to drive this final feature set, I'm not kidding here, I really am in the wilderness on this phase.

I think I understand what you are getting at here. I'm young enough to be of the "edit alot" crowd.

If I'm completely honest:

I can't really think of a way where nudging, cutting, slip editing, or anything of that nature gets enhanced by a control surface. Those tasks are much faster on a mouse and keyboard imo. Bringing up the nudge menu, or cross-fade editor, would be good thing to do but it's already possible to map your widgets to Reaper Actions and even get proper feedback(usually).

....


Something I've been thinking about that's in the same ballpark as most of the conversation the past couple days:

RegionMenu
MarkerMenu

I feel like these two self-explanatory things would aid tremendously in the navigation department.

I've actually spent the past couple hours trying to decipher SelectedTrackFXMenu and "follow the crumbs" to see if I could take a stab at it. I've had a few "ah, ok" moments LOL but not enough of them to start writing anything. I likely have to get a better overview of everything and ask more questions before I'm ready to insert my own additions.

as an aside:

VSCode is sweet, was able to clone your repository and view it in there.