I think it would be very useful for windows users to have access to these 2 folders (desktop & my documents) directly from Renoise Disk Op panel, especially desktop which is commonly used as a temporary folder by many pros. It can be added above the Home Directory button or even replaced.
Also in current form ‘Home Directory’ would not be very useful to access “My Documents” folder, because if user has changed the location of My Documents (it can be done by right-clicking on My Documents icon and selecting Properties, then changing the Target) the folder which exists in “C:…[windows profile]\my documents” would be of no use and renoise cannot recognize the right location of “my Documents”. Many windows users change the location of ‘My Documents’ to other partitions to avoid accidental deletion when re-installing windows.
You have 4 directory preset buttons for each category: songs, instruments, themes, etc.
To set a preset you must first navigate to the directory you want in the normal way, then right-click on one of the numbered buttons [1] [2] [3] [4] to save it. Left-click any of the buttons to reload the preset.
There’s no real need to create special buttons for the Desktop or anything like that in my opinion.
Yes this is not a need, but a speed-up feature. There’s no need for the ‘Home Directory’ to be there either, But it is. And don’t you think is will be a waste of your favorite [1] [2] [3] [4] buttons to permanently assign them to such prevalent directories (desktop & My documents)?
You started off by saying that the desktop is “commonly used as a temporary folder by many pros” but I don’t use it for that myself. I’m not sure what being a “pro” has to do with anything, but I personally prefer to keep all the random crap I download in a folder on another drive where it doesn’t clutter up my desktop. I like to keep my desktop clean and only containing important shortcuts to applications I use all the time (since the Start menu is a piece of garbage). I also literally never use the “My Documents” folder for anything. I keep all my files in a directory structure which makes sense to me, which is simple and efficient, etc. “C:\Audio\Songs” or “C:\Audio\Samples”, etc.
The problem that I’m trying to highlight here is that everybody does things differently, and making any assumptions about the way people prefer to work is a mistake. What feels right to you may be completely wrong for 10 other people, so this is not the way an application should be designed. Renoise has done it correctly here by providing customisable preset buttons which we can map to whichever directory we want. I don’t think the DiskOp should waste space on 2 buttons which are specific to the Windows OS considering that many people might not even use them.
The Home button is useful because no matter which section you are in - songs, instruments, samples, etc. - it provides instant access to a location in Windows which contains several “important” directories and files. I’ve never used Renoise on a Mac, but I would assume that the Home button there also provides quick access to a location which is useful to users of MacOS.
If anything I would simply suggest that we get a few more preset buttons. The DiskOp could comfortably be expanded slightly to include up to 10 buttons for example:
Personally I hardly even use the 4 that are available right now. But if people like yourself and others are running out of buttons then I think there should simply be more preset buttons. Adding special buttons for certain directories which some people may use, but others may not, is not the right way forward in my opinion.
Using the desktop and “my documents” also fragments the system partition.
Plus the desktop gets all cluttered, as dblue said.
I don’t recommend using those for files and I personally hate it when Windows suggests me the “my documents” location… argh
btw, 4 preferred locations seems ok to me, too. no need for more.
+1 for more preset slots in the diskop, especially convenient when searching for samples in the diskop IMO. 4 is hardly enough, and another row of 4 would fit perfectly underneath the current slots
Slightly off topic, but is the icon in the disk browser changing the directory to [i]C:\Documents and Settings\username[/i] for everybody else or is it just me?
If so, that’s a pretty rough place to default to and worse if anybody is actually saving stuff there.
I think this home should also be user definable (right click?) to a proper directory for your Renoise work and should be universal across song, instrument, sample, etc.
I think 4 really quick/temp buttons are great in addition to ‘background’ shortcuts. I like that in all aspacts of any kind of applications.
Even lots of music hardware is design that way, for a good reason really.
A few ‘Physical’ instant accessed temporary buttons. And as many presets as you like in the background (dropdownbox or whatever).
Also for instrument/automation envelopes and Global View presets.
Using your home directory for your files is “the right way to do it” - this is how things work on the OS X side of things and on UNIX in general. Assuming the default permissions are reasonable and your OS is multi-user, this is more secure and less prone to you destroying the OS with porn trojans and other bonehead user mistakes. Defrag and aesthetic issues aside, circumventing these defaults is a personal preference in the Windows world that is definately not recommended on any other OS.
Yeah, it could be definable. Right now it’s only wasting space for me, since I don’t have anything Renoise-related in there.
I’m talking about the Windows version, don’t know about OSX, so…
I agree that simply adding more presets in the browser pane is the most sensible solution. Besides, “My Documents” and “Desktop” are just shortcuts to real folders in Windows anyways.
icon in the disk browser changing the directory to [i]C:\Documents and Settings\username[/i] for everybody else or is it just me?
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