Escape should close confirmation windows (FIXED)

[Denys]

When deleting a track, a confirmation window appears (see enclosed image).

In many softs, I tend to press the esc key to cancel my action but apparently, it isn't recognized in Reaper.


Shouldn't it work this way?

[ivansc]

Since nobody else has bothered replying, my take on this is as follows:
Just because more than one application behaves in a certain way doesn`t mean that everything else should change it`s ways to follow the same behaviour.

That said, maybe re-post this in the feature request section as an ask?

I can`t think that it is something I personally would use as it isn`t a habit I have gotten into over the years, but there may well be many others on here who have & will give such a feature request support.
Good luck!

[Coachz]

It's not an unreasonable request but I'm too busy making hit albums to care. Make music !

[Denys]

I actually wonder how other people do. Do you just press N for no, or click on your mouse? Clicking is cool but you have to reach your mouse and click on this tiny button while Esc is almost a muscular reflex for me. Also, the less I use my mouse or trackball the better (Esc button is closer to my MIDI keyboard).



If it gets no attention here, I'll try feature request. Thank you for your take.

[valy]

Since Oui is highlighted, can't you just press enter to confirm it? How would that be different than pressing Escape in this instance?

[karbomusic]

Esc is fairly standard for this (or at least a number of places in reaper) across the application universe so it should probably be made to work - it's often interpreted to mean "stop". There are multiple asks for this over the years here FWIW.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by valy

Since Oui is highlighted, can't you just press enter to confirm it? How would that be different than pressing Escape in this instance?

They want cancel, not yes.

[valy]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

They want cancel, not yes.

Ah, missed that detail

[valy]

I guess I'm in the opposite boat because I'd like to avoid having this dialog box appear altogether. I can always undo the action if I do it on accident

[Winfield]

Originally Posted by valy

I guess I'm in the opposite boat because I'd like to avoid having this dialog box appear altogether. I can always undo the action if I do it on accident

This I see as problematic - accidentally deleting a track only to discover it's gone when reopening the session. Bummer.

+1 for escape to cancel (as OP suggested) - this would be the expected behaviour in most apps i presume.
-W

[valy]

Originally Posted by Winfield

This I see as problematic - accidentally deleting a track only to discover it's gone when reopening the session. Bummer.

+1 for escape to cancel (as OP suggested) - this would be the expected behaviour in most apps i presume.
-W

Can't say that's ever happened to me. I'm pretty careful about what I have selected when deleting tracks.

However, even if it did, I'm auto-backing up every five minutes. So chances are, it exists in one of those back-ups.

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by Winfield

+1 for escape to cancel (as OP suggested) - this would be the expected behaviour in most apps i presume.
-W

You are presuming, not persenting proof. FWIW I pretty much never close an app using the escape keys these days. Agreed years ago it was fairly common but as far as I can see not so common these days. Have you tried closing Word or a similar widely-used application using the esc key, for instance?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by ivansc

You are presuming, not persenting proof. FWIW I pretty much never close an app using the escape keys these days. Agreed years ago it was fairly common but as far as I can see not so common these days. Have you tried closing Word or a similar widely-used application using the esc key, for instance?

Dialogs etc., not apps so yea, that works in Word as I just tested. It's honestly something that shouldn't even need proof or a debate. Not gonna happen, fair enough, baseless presumption, not.

[deeb]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Dialogs etc., not apps so yea, that works in Word as I just tested. It's honestly something that shouldn't even need proof or a debate. Not gonna happen, fair enough, baseless presumption, not.

yep . Hitting Escape is never an accept, it's a close/cancel/do not proceed action.

[Winfield]

Originally Posted by valy

Can't say that's ever happened to me. I'm pretty careful about what I have selected when deleting tracks.

However, even if it did, I'm auto-backing up every five minutes. So chances are, it exists in one of those back-ups.

Yes the existing behaviour (with a pop-up) is preventing this from happening - has I ever had that pop-up appear (prompting to confirm deletion of a track), when trying to delete items, yes.
I'm all for you being able to remove that pop-up, but as an option (and I would suggest, not by default).

[Winfield]

Originally Posted by ivansc

You are presuming, not persenting proof. FWIW I pretty much never close an app using the escape keys these days. Agreed years ago it was fairly common but as far as I can see not so common these days. Have you tried closing Word or a similar widely-used application using the esc key, for instance?

You seem to have the assumption that i wrote anything about closing an app. I did not. I was referring to the pop-up (see OP). Anyway, you know what assumptions makes both you and me

EDIT:As a side note. When opening Word pressing escape during the 'splash-screen' closes word/cancels load. Reaper (also) ignores escape during the splash-screen.

[valy]

Originally Posted by Winfield

Yes the existing behaviour (with a pop-up) is preventing this from happening - has I ever had that pop-up appear (prompting to confirm deletion of a track), when trying to delete items, yes.
I'm all for you being able to remove that pop-up, but as an option (and I would suggest, not by default).

I mean on DAWs without popups. Although they made it an option, we could all be happy

[valy]

Also, on my setup, not all ways of deleting tracks produce a dialog box at all (this isn't default by any stretch though):

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by valy

Also, on my setup, not all ways of deleting tracks produce a dialog box at all (this isn't default by any stretch though):

Though the thread is about a type of "cancel" that has nothing to do with any particular feature, I should point out that it doesn't confirm for what you are demonstrating above because you had to go out of your way clicking vs accidentally hitting the delete key FWIW.

I'm not debating, just explaining why. Similar "are you sure" behavior occurs in TCP, if there are no items or FX on the track = no confirmation dialog but if there are, it wants you to confirm you meant to.

Could one find exceptions, of course, we already have an ESC key that doesn't work consistently but the reasoning for trying is fairly sound.

[valy]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Though the thread is about a type of "cancel" that has nothing to do with any particular feature, I should point out that it doesn't confirm for what you are demonstrating above because you had to go out of your way clicking vs accidentally hitting the delete key FWIW.

I'm not debating, just explaining why. Similar "are you sure" behavior occurs in TCP, if there are no items or FX on the track = no confirmation dialog but if there are, it wants you to confirm you meant to.

Could one find exceptions, of course, we already have an ESC key that doesn't work consistently but the reasoning for trying is fairly sound.

I didn't say they were equivalent in terms of steps taken. My point is simply that it is deleting a track without confirmation.

I mean, you could still accidentally have unintended tracks selected, and then delete them, with or without a confirmation box. So the argument that a confirmation box prevents you from accidentally deleting something isn't a strong one, in my opinion.

I don't think you'll be surprised to hear that randomly pressing keys can cause all sorts of ill shit to happen. Luckily we have Undo, and more usefully an Undo history to see what we just did.

Plus, it's totally inconsistent. I can select an item and press Del to remove it, with no dialog box appearing. What is the difference between an item and a track? Both actions can be undone in the exact same manner.

Having said all that, IF a dialog box is deemed necessary for whatever reason, then absolutely, allow us to Esc out of it. You can already do that with ReaConsole, for example.

[akademie]

^^^^ disagree about everything here ^^^^^

Mixing totally different situations. As karbo alredy mentioned there is major difference if user selects the track, right-click and select the command versus blindly press delete key which works on context basis (so it deletes different things in different cases) - so then it will just request for confirmation (only then it will tell you what is going to happen) --- in the first case with deleting from menu it was already known what is going to happen.

[valy]

Originally Posted by akademie

^^^^ disagree about everything here ^^^^^

Mixing totally different situations. As karbo alredy mentioned there is major difference if user selects the track, right-click and select the command versus blindly press delete key which works on context basis (so it deletes different things in different cases) - so then it will just request for confirmation (only then it will tell you what is going to happen) --- in the first case with deleting from menu it was already known what is going to happen.

Do you make it a habit to blindly press keys while mixing?

And do you expect a dialog box to appear for each of those random actions?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by valy

Do you make it a habit to blindly press keys while mixing?

I accidentally hit a random key I didn't mean to all the time actually; due to high use of shortcuts and being a one-man-band much of the time in the studio.

I'm not sure why this is even close to a debate though --- ESC has been used to cancel for decades (the thread subject). It's obvious why delete doesn't ask when there are no items or FX... I already pointed out Reaper is inconsistent in it's application, but being inconsistent does not at all undo the reasoning for the prompt when it appears, or the desire to "escape" from it.

It's not about whether someone likes it or not, just what the reasoning is/was. It could be any of 100 other actions taken where in the middle of it ESC should cancel, that's all there is to it.

[deeb]

Valy:

when you hit escape in the pop up in the browser in untrustworthy website , asking if you want to install the amazing goodie, you hit escape. Do you expect it to be a yes, i want , please continue?

you could always undo ..

https://www.google.com/search?q=esca...ng+in+computer

[deeb]

I posted this somewhere some time ago, and you can read "close button" as "Escape" key. Same Happens.

Originally Posted by deeb

I would expect that if i use close button, nothing would be done. Instead reaper assumes i want to import to single track.

[Winfield]

This:

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I'm not sure why this is even close to a debate though --- ESC has been used to cancel for decades (the thread subject).

[Denys]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I accidentally hit a random key I didn't mean to all the time actually; due to high use of shortcuts and being a one-man-band much of the time in the studio.

Same here! And when this happens, my first reflex is to reach that very familiar ESC key which I know is at the same place on every keyboard I use. Hence my frustration when I realized it did nothing on the confirmation window I enclosed in the first post.

I think it wouldn't hurt to have the possibility to cancel by ESC on any confirmation window, but I may forget cases I'm not familiar with.

Anyway, thank you everyone for you input on this matter!

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by Winfield

You seem to have the assumption that i wrote anything about closing an app. I did not. I was referring to the pop-up (see OP). Anyway, you know what assumptions makes both you and me

EDIT:As a side note. When opening Word pressing escape during the 'splash-screen' closes word/cancels load. Reaper (also) ignores escape during the splash-screen.

It just occurred to me that presumably this is not an issue with Macs. My three Mac keyboards don`t even have an ESC key...
fwiw, I cant remember the last time I hit the ESC key on my Windows machines, either.

I do 90% of everything with the mouse. This would seem to account for WHY I didn`t get what you were saying in the OP.
I just assumed it was about thee ESC key and Reaper in general.
Sorry about that, but as someone who regularly hits both the capslock and the ESC by mistake in Windows,I for one would want an option NOT to do this.

[lerian]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Just because more than one application behaves in a certain way doesn`t mean that everything else should change it`s ways to follow the same behaviour.

Actually it means exactly that. Its called an usability/UX pattern. And in computer apps the logical and mutually accepted behavior is escape=close.

There is a score given by ux audit which reffers to - how time it took for an user to complete a task. It also takes into account user's review on how easy is to complete the task. The audit is done on thousands of users usually. But as low as 10 users are enough to give a clear picture on some things. On the escape=close pattern there is no question about it, it is clearly the expected behavior by 90%+ of users.

[Daodan]

Just noticed that this confirmation window (delete tracks) close button inactive so you can't even press it. Like option to close this window was disabled on purpose, maybe because of some technical limitations or something. I think Justin can explain it if he wants to. In other reaper windows close button is active and escape key works.

[Daodan]

Originally Posted by valy

I guess I'm in the opposite boat because I'd like to avoid having this dialog box appear altogether. I can always undo the action if I do it on accident

If you you accidentally delete item you can undo this almost instantly. But if you delete track with some heavy plugins and try undo you have to wait because reaper loads those plugins back, and sometimes even just deleting tracks witch heavy plugins takes some time. So I guess that's why we have confirmation window for tracks but not for items.


btw now I use action "Cut items/tracks/envelope points (depending on focus) ignoring time selection" (ctrl+x by default) instead of "Remove..." (delete) so maybe it helps you or use another action with no confirmation window. "Track: Remove tracks" for example

[Denys]

Dear devs, is there a logical reason why Esc. doesn't close the window in this case?


Thank you!

[matt_t]

ESC closes an FX chain window; however, remove an FX from the chain and it doesn't any more. I'm sure there are other examples.

Just my 2 cents, if they're even worth that much....

[creed3]

I vote a hearty "YES please!". AS noted before, ECS already closes some windows in Reaper. I press it without thinking because it's such a universal thing in most software. For those that would not use it, no harm done. For the rest of us, life with Reaper would be a little simpler.

[Justin]

Originally Posted by Denys

When deleting a track, a confirmation window appears (see enclosed image).

In many softs, I tend to press the esc key to cancel my action but apparently, it isn't recognized in Reaper.


Shouldn't it work this way?

these prompts should use OK/Cancel rather than yes/no (which will have the side effect of making escape work!). Fixing in a +dev build soon

[Justin]

Originally Posted by matt_t

ESC closes an FX chain window; however, remove an FX from the chain and it doesn't any more. I'm sure there are other examples.

Just my 2 cents, if they're even worth that much....

hmm escape always closes the fx chain here

[Justin]

Originally Posted by valy

I guess I'm in the opposite boat because I'd like to avoid having this dialog box appear altogether. I can always undo the action if I do it on accident

you can use the action that deletes without prompting

[Denys]

Originally Posted by Justin

these prompts should use OK/Cancel rather than yes/no (which will have the side effect of making escape work!). Fixing in a +dev build soon

I checked the last build and Esc works perfectly in said context now. Thank you for fixing that, Justin!

[matt_t]

Originally Posted by Justin

hmm escape always closes the fx chain here

It does, but only if you click in a blank space in the fx list first. Whereas you don't need to do that if you haven't removed an fx.

[akademie]

Originally Posted by matt_t

It does, but only if you click in a blank space in the fx list first. Whereas you don't need to do that if you haven't removed an fx.

for me, like Justin wrote, ESC also always closes the FX Chain here in Reaper v6.66 x64 Linux
(no matter if there are more plugin or some deleted, it always highlights one plugin in the list after deleting a plugin and ESC closes whole window, even if no plugin is highlighted/selected).