Lock pan and volume in tracks

[Edgar]

Are those Toolbar sliders a different class of slider?

There are three Slider classes; some places use one, other places use one of the others. However, it's a bit difficult to tease out why they react differently in this instance. Cursory inspection seems to imply that all three versions share the same mouse event code.

[billw58]

The strange thing for me, also having it happen a lot more than once – before I set up my lockout, is that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how it happens. To move the slider one must click, hold & drag – an operation which, on my trackball, requires two fingers to operate 2 controls. Perhaps it is something else moving these sliders – maybe just on Windows.

The pan and gain sliders can be changed by hovering the mouse over a new position on the slider then left-clicking - the slider jumps to the new settings. I believe this is how people are accidentally setting those sliders when they simply mean to select the track by clicking in the track control panel.

Perhaps simply disabling this action would achieve what we want?

-- Bill

[Edgar]

The pan and gain sliders can be changed by hovering the mouse over a new position on the slider then left-clicking - the slider jumps to the new settings. I believe this is how people are accidentally setting those sliders when they simply mean to select the track by clicking in the track control panel.

I now believe that this is exactly what is happening in my case. The target region in which you can click and have the knob jump to that position is slightly more than three times the visual height of the slider. This means that there is a region about 20 pixels tall, both above & below the knob, which is "active" or "hot". This may not be quite so bad in wxWidgets 3; I did a major rewrite of the slider code for wxWidgets but only some of it was committed and I just don't remember all the details now. Now that I think back, I do remember testing the new slider code on Audacity and finding some problems Audacity would need to address when adopting wxWidgets 3.

[waxcylinder]

I'm minded to agree with Ed here - I think the active regions for the sliders extend too far above and below each slider.

Peter.

[steve]

I'm minded to agree with Ed here - I think the active regions for the sliders extend too far above and below each slider.

Testing on Linux, the clickable area is very tight to the top/bottom edges of the slider. The clickable height can't be reduced without the "L" / "R" / "+" / "-" signs overlapping with the slider scale.

As a different approach, would it help if the pointer changed into a "hand" cursor when safely over the information area?
Also, if the sliders and information area swapped places, then when working with single track projects there would be a larger "safe" area to click for track selection, and the (less risky) mute and solo buttons would be between the "safe" area and the sliders. This would also benefit users with large multi-track projects as it would make the sliders easier to get at.

[Edgar]

Testing on Linux, the clickable area is very tight to the top/bottom edges of the slider.

I seem to recall this being some of what I changed for wxWidgets 3 – but no promises.

As a different approach, would it help if the pointer changed into a "hand" cursor when safely over the information area?
Also, if the sliders and information area swapped places, then when working with single track projects there would be a larger "safe" area to click for track selection, and the (less risky) mute and solo buttons would be between the "safe" area and the sliders. This would also benefit users with large multi-track projects as it would make the sliders easier to get at.

Changing the pointer to a "hand" makes a lot of sense but it would have to operate the same way for all the sliders.

I'm not quite sure what you meant as far as rearranging things. Here's what it looks like on Windows wxWidgets 2 with "automatically resize vertically" OFF:

pan.png (4.33 KiB) Viewed 1510 times

How about photoshopping a mockup?

[steve]

How about photoshopping a mockup?

TrackInfoPanel.png (16.01 KiB) Viewed 1508 times

[Gale Andrews]

Having the sliders at the top obviously helps keep them visible when you reduce the track height - I thought most of us already liked that idea.

However there would be an increased risk of knocking the gain slider when opening TDDM, and when a track had reduced height without being collapsed, a much reduced area where you could safely click to select the track. You might still need a locking mechanism.


Gale

[steve]

You might still need a locking mechanism.

I'm contesting the word "need".

It seems that most of those that are in favour of a locking mechanism use Audacity with single track, or low track count projects. In such cases the "safe" clicking area for track selection is huge with this arrangement. When clicking on the name to access the TDM, there is direct feedback to the user (the menu opens). If the menu does not open, then the user is immediately aware that they have not clicked in the right place and will hopefully awaken from their daydream

We sometimes have people writing in that frequently work with huge multi-track projects (and I have also worked on a lot of high track count projects), but I don't recall ever hearing complaint about this issue from those users. One might reasonably expect that the problem would be worse for these users, but evidence points to the contrary. We don't know why that is, but my conjecture is that either, such users are more aware of the risk and so are in the habit of clicking more carefully, or that they have streamlined their working method to avoid fiddly mouse operations, such as selecting (continuous) tracks through double clicking on the track and opening the TDM from the keyboard.

Having the sliders at the top obviously helps keep them visible when you reduce the track height - I thought most of us already liked that idea.

My preferred arrangement is:

Track Name (TDM button)
Mute / Solo buttons
Gain slider
Pan slider
Track info
Collapse/expand button

In my opinion, this arrangement keeps the most frequently used controls visible longest when the track count requires vertically shorter track height, but I realise that does not offer help for the issue being discussed here.

A crucial question for which I don't think that we yet have a good answer, is, why/how do some users "repeatedly bump pan or volume"?

The original poster specified that it is "in my efforts to move tracks around".
In that specific case, I expect that changing the pointer icon when over a "safe" area of the info panel may be helpful because if provides visual feedback. I don't see any downside to this measure, so I'm +1 for that.

[Gale Andrews]

You might still need a locking mechanism.

I'm contesting the word "need".

It seems that most of those that are in favour of a locking mechanism use Audacity with single track, or low track count projects. In such cases the "safe" clicking area for track selection is huge with this arrangement. When clicking on the name to access the TDM, there is direct feedback to the user (the menu opens). If the menu does not open, then the user is immediately aware that they have not clicked in the right place and will hopefully awaken from their daydream

The user may be awake but will still have to reset the slider when they tried to open TDDM and missed the target.

We sometimes have people writing in that frequently work with huge multi-track projects (and I have also worked on a lot of high track count projects), but I don't recall ever hearing complaint about this issue from those users. One might reasonably expect that the problem would be worse for these users

Not necessarily - if the tracks are collapsed it won't be possible for them to accidentally move the sliders with the mouse.

My preferred arrangement is:

Track Name (TDM button)
Mute / Solo buttons
Gain slider
Pan slider
Track info
Collapse/expand button

Yes I think I slightly prefer that to Gain slider under name.

A crucial question for which I don't think that we yet have a good answer, is, why/how do some users "repeatedly bump pan or volume"? The original poster specified that it is "in my efforts to move tracks around".

They could be dragging from the bottom of the track (either side of the Collapse button).

In that specific case, I expect that changing the pointer icon when over a "safe" area of the info panel may be helpful because if provides visual feedback. I don't see any downside to this measure, so I'm +1 for that.

+1. I think such an icon might help a little with accidental slider moves, but a greater benefit is that it might help unhide "drag tracks up and down with the mouse".


Gale