[Done 2.8] Collapsible Channel Grouping

Ideas & suggestions
1

It is difficult to explain without showing you so I made a small video to show you why I feel this would be a massive improvement to the composition experience in Renoise for larger (width-wise) tracks. I’m nervous so please excuse my composure in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7KuXT37lKE

I forgot to mention in the video that all of the tracks are utilized in the composition that is on screen, and that each has specific settings, basically an orchestra - there is often a channel used per instrument. I don’t show my stuff very often but I get this frustrating problem all the time and it really becomes an issue when trying to track down a bug in a track/automation when I have to scroll rapidly side to side even on 6000px wide display.

Thanks for your time, and again, a fantastic piece of software.

2

To be honest, i’ll be disapointed if there is not anything like this in releases near future. + 10!!

3

@m0d: lose the hair, you’ll look better. no offense, i mean it, you’ll look better.
also, if you hadn’t told me you were nervous, i wouldn’t have known. great video, and also i think the first time i’ve seen a feature request on here with a video explanation. really, really great, and really really clear.

now, of course your idea is fantastic, and i would love to see it in Renoise. i have to ask though, did you do a forum search for ‘collapse tracks’ or something before posting your request? i think the same idea is right here: https://forum.renoise.com/t/track-grouping/26128
it gets a lot of love from the likes of danoise and psyj and more of the ‘big guys’, so it is bound to be on the todo-list for a future release. i share your problem, even though i do not have nearly that many tracks (or that many monitors for that matter!)

also, i see this is your first topic & first post? welcome to the community! please don’t hate me for the hair-comment.

edit: wow, you’re registered since '07. a bit of a late welcome i guess? still.

4

Personal remarks like that are unwarranted. “No offense” doesn’t clear you from being offensive. I usually have a beard but because of my recent vacation to a sunny place that has come off but is growing back as you can see. It’s up to me how I look and perceive myself so please STFU about it.

I’ve made 46 posts on this forum, according to my stats here, but I only post when I need to, and I needed to because this feature has been missing for some time now for me. I think 2.5 years wait is long enough before saying something with a bit of proof to bolster support for it (hence the video). :)

Edit: Got the years wrong :)

5

Yeah, +1 for this.

(also, hi m0d! don’t lose your hair!)

6

The hair is the source of all m0d’s legendary powers :)

Quite bizarre that you would say such a thing anyway!

7

I have been MIA for a while but just logged in as I am absolutely appalled by hair comment.

This is a music software forum, comments about personal appearance have no place except in the off-topic sub forum.

I mean, what in god’s name does his facial hair have to do with the price of tea in china?!

He barely has any! Really bizarre comment.

8

Whoa. Exactly how many tracks is there in that song of yours?

Anyway, you provide a great case. The Track Grouping suggestion is related, but it doesn’t involve the pattern matrix. But it definitely shouldn’t be too hard to extend the concept of groups/folders to that part.

While such a feature would allow “cleaning up” the horizontal (track) axis, I’ve been toying with the idea of introducing a similar concept to the vertical (pattern sequence) axis as well. Seems like they could work together just perfectly!

9

hey m0d !

congrats for the video idea :rolleyes:

First of all
I need 60 tracks to fill
my own screen like
your left screen
devoted to the
pattern matrix

let’s say that you want to work with 100 tracks
that control all the woodwinds, brass, percussions,
keyboards and strings of a
Modern Symphonic Orchestra.

you should logically want to create 5 groups of tracks
maybe more if you need to separate more precisely
violins and violas ans violoncellos for example

with the actual GUI, you can anyway
correctly see 60 tracks in the pattern matrix
if you’ve got enough screen resolution.

so even if you only collapse tracks
in the pattern editor,
the problem will remain the same
in the pattern matrix, still limited
to 60 tracks in a screen…

for now I suppose that you try to circumvent your problems
with the usage of top track colors. (? no?)

for example :
every woodwind = PURE RED
every brass=PURE BLUE
every percussions=PURE WHITE
every keyboards = PURE PINK
every string = PURE GREEN.
.
.

You double-click on a color on the pattern matrix,
your pattern block and view are automatically
deplaced to that position.

but I understand that
with those 3 big screens, and large array of tracks,
the colors on the top of the tracks are not
efficient and helpfull enough to help you to
organise your song setup

I think that grouping and collapsing tracks
BOTH in pattern editor AND in the MATRIX view
will be necessary in your situation

However, we must keep in mind that
Renoise tends to avoid “floating windows”
or “hidden informations”, because we believe
that the power of the interface is that
it allows you to quickly access to all the informations
you need during the complex composition
and mixing process ; so the more you hide,
the less you see what you hide and it could
maybe become slower to handle the
complexity of a try-and-error composition
process.

I also propose that we could be able to “extend”
top track colors so that they become
background track colors.

BTW, top track colors are not available by default in the mixer view.
Why ?

thanx for reading

10

bunch of damn hippies you all need haircuts…now get off my lawn!

11

:lol: +1

12

@m0d (&others): i’m not talking beards. i have a beard myself. and it is up to you, of course. sorry, you are right that this is a music software forum and maybe i shouldn’t be talking about that sort of stuff. i did however, in my post, give you a lot of positive feedback on your video and your suggestion, please do not let a too personal comment stand in the way of noticing that. i’ll never do it again, i swear.
your profile shows this as the only post you made. maybe it does not display older posts? you are right in bringing back a feature request from some years ago, especially seeing how useful it would be to have this. i just was not sure if you intentionally made a new thread or just did not know about the old one.

13

Thanks everyone for the input so far. I think there are some strong opinions here about track grouping which I am glad to see.

Regarding the hair comments - it’s all drama that isn’t needed :) Let’s move on, and for those that don’t know already - rhowaldt went out of his way to amend things so please don’t be mean to him :)

As for hippies… what can I say?

:D

14

@m0d: thanks for that, and the picture brings back memories. :)

15

That is a ridiculous amount of tracks dude, respect. Can’t even imagine the administration keeping focus on what is happening where.

Probably suggested somewhere in the other threads as well, but I can see the benefit of color to distinguish groups as well. Not the optionally pansy little stripes we have now, but the complete mixer/pattern track strip.

16

forgot to mention +1 on your great feature idea…

Also If it wasn’t obvious enough, I was only kidding about the hippy comment…my hair was over 2 feet long until a few months ago when I finally cut and donated it. =)

17

Oh I knew that for sure :D

For the sake of rumor my hair used to be bleached blond, short, spikey and was told I looked like some dude called Scooter. In 2006 I decided to grow my hair to compete with my uncle’s, though I never wear my hair down like in that pic, ever.

18

hahahahahaha, Scooter, he’s a German house/happy hardcore artist from the 1995 or something, great stuff, check it out:

by the way, really cool picture!

19

Scooter, “It’s niceto be important but it’s more important to be nice”. He was “poetically” very renewing. Well, let’s just keep it that he changed his lines in every new “production”.

20

+1 for the hair.

About the idea. Things to consider:

  1. Should the group be mixable as its own track?
  2. Should it have its own track in the pattern editor, similar to how the send tracks look? That would make sense imo, and would also give it the vertical track dsp chain.
  3. Would it make sense being able to put send tracks in a group? (yes)