I think a negative delay, despite being a feature that seems somewhat natural/functional, does run contrary to deep tracker logic. Lines don’t look backward, only forward. It’s an aspect of the simplicity and elegance of tracker design. This being said, I totally agree that it would be nice to at least have a note’s placement on the pattern more accurately reflect its position in “rhythm space”, only I don’t think the default pattern view is the place for it. So, nobody freak out on me here, but you may have noticed that I’ve recently been proposing some piano roll or “roll view” designs in this thread:https://forum.renoise.com/t/brainstorming-piano-roll/12547
The reason I point to those designs is that the roll view could allow for delay-nudging of notes up and down, providing a more accurate visualization of their trigger times. Back in the default view, Renoise is setting the note placement and delay values for you. There you would see the tracker-brain version of the programmed rhythm, as it has always been. It would make for no changes in core/expected functionality.
In short, I think an alternate presentation view (still vertical, always vertical), one focused on visualizing melody and rhythm, could come with a surprising number of natural-fit benefits.
My suggestion is more of an idea to make the delay column make more sense, meaning only an improvement in the looks of an feature which is already implemented.
Your suggestion of a piano roll-hybrid on the other hand seems to bea completely other chapter, and - while I’m not against that (it looks interesting) - I have to ask in what way does my suggestion intrude to your vision? Maybe I just misunderstood your intention of linking to the piano-roll topic, but this “piano roll” looks rather like an complement to what there is now and doesn’t necessarily have so much to do with the delay-column.
Anyway, as a try to embrace your idea more into this topic and without making this topic too messy, I also have to ask in what way you set the delay-values in that additional editor? As I see it, It seems like you just drag the note-length with the mouse and it automatically snaps to the ticks? Maybe holding down CTRL could access the possibility to change the note-lengths more freely, while the hex-numbers of the delay-column would change in real-time as you drag? That would be cool.