I got in a weird situation where i wanted to mute an effect, but it was automated on and off - is there any way around this?
…apart from deleting my automation
Do you mean deleting on/off automation only? In think it is only possible by manually look at all patterns… :3 if there is no other automation, I duplicate the FX and then delete the automated one. You could also duplicate it and then use danoisee’s new copy automation tool to copy the other automation.
The fun thing here also is that you don’t even know if on/off was accidently automated (which happens here regularly e.g. if you quantize midi tracks, midi commands can be destroyed and turn into on/off automation), because there is no indicator, if it was automated. Such an indicator could be implemented thru a buffered Boolean, which will be set once and saved along with the song, instead having to check the entire song FX data. Or using reference lists on pattern commands. Whatever, I think this problem is solvable for the devs.
Btw. on/off automation by pattern command IMO sucks. Better would be as graphical automation, and I would bet that it also would make the implementation of an indicator easily possible.