Perhaps the ‘filter by every nth line’ (poor man’s zoom) is a different idea altogether. It does something differently, which I find exciting. But it’s not easy to say how it should behave on pattern boundaries.
Mm, I’m pretty sure a scripted prototype would help here (now I’m really sidetracking…)
Yes, your idea is a Zoom-in Pattern EDITOR- option. Right? And like I said in previous reply, it’s exactly like how I imagine it too. Presumed I didn’t misunderstand your demonstration. 
My latest idea was just demonstrating how the Patter MATRIXcould be of help in certain tasks, instead of zooming out the Pattern EDITOR. For instance, it’s easier to copy / paste a lot of blocks from different tracks with a Smart Snap feature, than it is to do the same thing in the P. EDITOR were you constantly have to look for the correct line to paste stuff to.
As for your suggestion: If you look at the two parts in your image, they are actually very similar.
Yep, that’s because the P. MATRIXare zoomed in and P. EDITOR zoomed out in that particular example. But more about this later.
Would it not be better to have just one interface when things are represented in such a similar way, anyway? You’re loosing an essential part of the PM by allowing it to zoom in (overview), something I think could be solved better by the PE
You mean like scrapping the P. MATRIX all together?
That could work, but you have to zoom in & out a LOT _ back and forth _ with a “General editing view” (?).There’s a reason why most, if not all, DAWs have decided to split the screen where you do:
1. Rough/Global edits in the 1st window (could be other stuff too though)
- The timeline with Clips / WAV forms / Automations being the case for most DAWs.
- P. MATRIX being the case of Renoise.
2. More detailed edits in the 2nd window
- The piano roll, sample editor, etc being the case for most DAWs.
- P. EDITOR being the case of Renoise.
Maybe you have a better idea though, I may have misunderstood something.
But do you mean… Two windows doing roughly the same would be waste of space? I’m not sure as long as you do different things in these windows (like the case are with P. MATRIX and the P. EDITOR today right?), we’ve been through this before, remember? 
Here’s an update of this with scopes :
Another quick thought: a lot of your emphasis seems to be on ‘clips’. The way a normal DAW does them, you say. But I think we progressed beyond that point, because we have something far more advanced now (phrases). Just a question of how you look at /work with them.
And with autoseeking samples and phrases and whatnot, perhaps a different/reworked could then have mutes that work from pattern edges as default, but able to be more finegrained if needed.
Because when I play my autoseeking phrase it will stop/resume when muted or unmuted - this is actually very powerful stuff that you can currently only do live, not record anywhere.
OK, interesting. Care to elaborate that an overview of the whole song isn’t needed when we now have phrases? Isn’t the hierarchy like this:
Pattern Matrix
- Pattern Editor
- Phrase editor
?
Some problems with Phrases imo: You cannot view nor edit more than one phrase at the time, and you have no visual presentation in the P. (Tracker) EDITOR of how short / long the phrases are? Also, the effect columns - in comparison to an ordinary Pattern Editor Track - are rather limited if I remember correctly.
Then again, I may have missed your point (probably).
I presume this could be interesting or messy:
- Blocks in the P. EDITOR (consisting of phrases)
- Blocks in the P. MATRIX (consisting of P. EDITOR stuff)
So, essentially, a selective P. EDITOR in relation to a smarter P. MATRIX would make the need for phrases less. At least if you just include the features of phrases to the ordinary P. EDITOR, like playback in another key etc.
Basically, this is how it works with REDUX + other DAW. You track stuff and insert these on a timeline. Renoise, in itself, could work the same way… No?
I just found this awesome video which introduces you to the GUI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhwmT0G5EwMThe zooming goodness happens around 3:30 into the video.
Cool. So is this basically what you tried to explain earlier?
Like he described in the video; Radium Tracker have both GUI-Zoom and LINE-Zoom. That would be interesting in Renoise too. The Font-Size option may be similar to GUI-Zoom though.