I’m not even sure how to explain this, or if it’s even possible… but I just came up with an idea that I think could simplify tracking A LOT if it could be implemented…
Let’s start with some terminology…
Every pattern has a number of lines… either 64 (default), or you can increase/decrease as you please. Often times I (and i’m sure other trackers too), will need to exactly double the number of lines in certain patterns in their songs (and subsequently double the playback speed) for special purposes. Generally I do this if I need to make my beat more complex because I don’t have enough lines in a pattern of 64 playing at speed 06, so I increase it to 128 lines at speed 03. I call this "increasing the resolution" so to speak, because now you have twice the number of lines being played back at the same speed…
So anyway… The problem with doing this is… If i copy everything from a pattern that has 64 lines into a pattern with 128 lines, but I still want it to sound the same, I have to add the correct number of spaces between all the notes… which is very time consuming (and confusing for complex rhythms).
My idea is this:
Would it be possible to have a pattern view that would contain a certain number of lines, but show a different number of lines? (except for specific sections where you could “expand” or zoom the view to add things, such as the complexity of the beat i mentioned earlier)
ok, sounds weird… but stay with me here…
the reasoning is this:
For example, you could have a pattern that had 128 lines, but only showed 64 lines… for the sake of simplicity, this would prevent you from having to re-do the spacing for all your other instruments (i.e. leads and basses, etc), but it would still allow for the extra “resolution”, to add in more complex drum parts in lines that wouldn’t show up in a 64 line pattern. the way this would work is… it would show only 64 lines except for, when you needed the extra “resolution”, you would be able to somehow “expand” the pattern view for only the extra spaces/lines that you need to insert extra notes… but it still wouldn’t mess up the rhythms from your other note playbacks because it would automatically adjust their spacing
An analogy would be this: You know how in windows, if you use those personalized menus, if you click on one of the menus on the top, let’s say the File menu… it will show only the options that you use the most frequently… so let’s say the first time you click on it, the menu options are “New, Open, Save”… well you know there are more options to the file menu, but it doesn’t show them until you click that little down arrow at the bottom, to “expand” the rest of the menu, and show options such as “print preview, properties, etc” … the same concept could be applied to renoise pattern view. how, exactly this would work, i’m not sure, but you could maybe do a right click on the line where you needed some extra resolution, and insert how ever many extra lines were necessary. it could also offer features for zoom in/zoom out, so if you wanted to view the whole thing in full resolution (i.e. 128), you could, or you could zoom down to just 64, and the notes contained within the “extra” lines would just be invisible to that specific view
Does this make any sense? Does anybody think this would be useful? Would it be practical? Or even possible?
or am i just crazy? 
So it is planned, but for when I’m not sure anyone knows (?)