This is my first post, and I haven’t purchased a Renoise license yet. I’m taking care of the first post thing now, and the license thing in the next couple of days…
An enhancement that I think would be useful would be an option to add the equivalent of Microsoft’s Intellisense to the track editor. For those who are not familiar with Intellisense, it is an autocompletion tool for computer programmers that looks at what is being typed and then offers a context-sensitive list of available commands, etc. In Renoise, this could consist of a notes list (perhaps confined to a user-selected scale or with a given scale’s notes highlighted in a complete list), available instruments, and pattern commands with descriptions of what each does. The implementation of this could be in dropdown lists, tool tips, or a function key to keep it really unobtrusive to users who don’t want to be bothered seeing info they already know. What it would be like for the user, would be that when you position the cursor in a column, a dropdown list would appear with the available set of notes/instruments/commands/etc for that column for the user to pick from by arrowing with the keyboard and then pressing tab to have the selected item inserted as valid text. It’s very handy in programming editors and could possibly be the next big thing for Renoise. Thanks!
Interesting idea, but I’m wonder with all the possible options, choices, if this would be feasible / usable at all? It kind of defeats the purpose, trying to speed up workflow, if you first have to search through lists, selecting what you could have typed in right away.
You can type right away as usual without selecting anything. The options appear dynamically in dropdowns below the text field based on what you’ve typed, and you can ignore them if you’re not interested in them. In a terse environment like Renoise’s where commands are less verbose, this kind of interface may need to be adjusted a bit, but I think it could still work.
I’ve used Intellisense at work for some years now, and it helps quite a bit. You have information readily available to you as you type in code, and this appears to me as if it could work in Renoise. I’d say the Renoise developers have seen Intellisense in action. What I’m describing for Renoise would be very short lists really. So while it may sound like a information overload, in comparison, Java programmers using Eclipse or NetBeans have pages full of information pop up for them with each command they type in, and it speeds up their work.
Anyways, it’s just something to think about. I last looked in on Renoise a couple of years ago, but couldn’t really figure it out. I’ve since used FL Studio to create some songs, and I now have an understanding of DAW workflows that I didn’t have before. I tried Renoise again recently, and it’s clicked and I’m really excited about using it (I’m selling Ableton Live that I have because I think I won’t need it when I have Renoise. Keeping FL Studio though–I think it will work well with Renoise, and it is also NFR…). I just posted this because while I was messing around starting a song and using a VST instrument today, it occurred to me that the Intellisense concept could be useful here.
Your idea sounds novel, but I think the auto-completion thing works far better in a programming environment. Actually the only situation where I can think this would come in handy would be the one you mentioned in your post, which is working on a specific note-scale. But otherwise the pattern editor is quite efficient as it is, and the thought of a pop-up-list feels a bit obtrusive.
For me the usefulness of auto-completion in Vim (which I think might be equivalent to this Intellisense) comes evident when I have looooooong words to type. Hit keycombo - down pops a list of possible words you want. In pattern editor, however, you don’t really have to ‘type’ anything. The only thing where you have to press more than 1 key to get what you want in a column is when putting in effect values. And there it’s all about the numbers. And it seems rather hard to autocomplete those.
As for popping up a list of pattern effects there might be some useful points in this suggestion. I’m not using VST instruments at all, really, but I understand that certain pattern commands dealing with samples just don’t work with those. Maybe the VST instruments could be recognized, and the effect menu (at the bottom of the pattern editor) could be updated accordingly? But I think even this should be optional.
If it could only popup as you start to type a command, showing all the available commands, it would make Renoise much more user friendly for new users.
Lowering the very steep learning curve.
I think optional drop-down menus in the pattern editor is not as bad idea as it first appears, for this very reason.
They could depend on the column, showing instrument names when in instrument column and a list including brief effect descriptions in the effect column.
