Another sacrilegious design suggestion and definitely not a priority ;) In other DAWs, plugins are usually contained inside tracks as small boxes with the plugin's name and an active/inactive button. Those boxes can then be opened to show the full interface of the plugin and then closed. This makes accessing different plugins in distant parts of an arrangement very fast. Audiotool mimics the experience of having real devices laid out on a desktop. Graphically it's great and very innovative, but since the viewing area is limited (you can zoom out, but you lose detail) and devices don't overlap for obvious reasons, it forces the user to pan, scroll or (my preferred way) jump from connection to connection in cables to get to every device. In a traditional track-based DAW, this would be the equivalent of having all plugins everywhere opened at the same time. It doesn't make much sense since you usually adjust one plugin at a time. I'm not proposing to get rid of the desktop view of course, but perhaps to find the best of both worlds: a desktop with devices reduced to small boxes showing only the device name, active or inactive button, connections and device icons/menu around them. The boxes could be opened (double-click) to reveal the whole device, change parameters, then closed. Opening another box would automatically close the previous open one. Similar to how regions in the time-line can be opened or closed to work with their contents, or how icons in a window view can be opened and closed. This would practically eliminate excessive, time-consuming panning, scrolling or cable jumping, could potentially accelerate rendering, still be graphically pleasing and, in my opinion, would make the desktop more practical.
Comments (8)
I wonder if this would improve performance at all. It sounds like an interesting concept.
I was thinking the same thing, but what if the default view for devices was collapsed and opening the device didn't expand the device on the desktop, but it opened a popup with the device parameters there. You could resize and multitask using these popup windows. Perhaps it's counterintuitive, but it could at least be made a preference option to increase performance on larger workspaces. Besides, design thinking is to consider all options even if they're absolutely horrible.
For your second concern, maybe have a different desktop view that implements this feature where devices are simple boxes that can be opened via popup windows. Instead of cables, these boxes could be connected via flow arrows, like flowcharts. I could probably come up with a mockup of what this could look like on a large track
I know that there would be many design details to deal with. I was just thinking about the differences between an interface where everything is visible and open simultaneously but with a limited viewing area (yours) and a compact one where selected objects open as needed. In the first, you need very efficient ways to navigate through the expanse of the arrangement. In the second, navigation is not so crucial and you need instead efficient ways to switch between open objects. I was wondering if there was a sweet spot between both approaches where your app could benefit from both and keep its character. And yes, I agree, this is for a far future.
I also remember that a while ago we had a very interesting discussion about offering alternative views of the arrangement. If you think about your arrangement as a database, you could offer a window formatted like a table where you could see rows of devices and columns of parameters. This would allow you to query and list devices by criteria, allow you to select common parameters and change them all in one go, etc. If the arrangement is essentially structured data, there might be several ways to "visualize" it, each one offering unique ways of modifying it.
So maybe something like this?
I didn't finish because cables are messy
Btw, that is Luxior's Timestopper c;
@apollo Yes, that's more or less the idea.
@andremichelle There are several options to deal with those problems. You could open and close a single device at a time, or a device chain (devices arranged horizontally) or an arbitrary selection of devices. This system could be very flexible. The cables wouldn't be shown on open devices, only the connectors, and you could still make or break connections via context menu. The connections could be managed very fast in the collapsed view. In Flash there's the option to "lock" the connections of the arrangement, so that only controls can be changed (this hasn't been ported to Next). This would be the opposite: closing devices to work on connections only and not on parameters. About indicators, I wouldn't need to see automations if the device is closed. Probably I'd work with them in the time-line. Note in leds could be added to the collapsed boxes, as well as some kind of visual feedback (highlight, colour change, flash, tooltip with information) any time a collaborator is changing a control in a device that is closed in your view. It's the same case as a collaborator adding or changing notes or automation keyframes in a region that is closed on your view. It's not a big problem.