-1000 for vertical automation, those screenshots look horrible and disastrous. The proper solution is to have a horizontal arranger along with the pattern editor and ability to show notes and automation there, and it also provides a good way to represent audio waveforms. I think the idea proposed in the thread would be a huge step back and anything even close to it should never be implemented.
hey noby, I’d be happy to see your mockup for an horizontally - scrolling pattern tracker
I never said a horizontal tracker, but an arranger similar to what you can find on say Cubase or Ableton, along side with the pattern editor. And I actually have made a mock-up of that (it’s somewhere in the arranger sticky), but it’s a bit outdated and unfinished. In any case I don’t think this approach solves anything and would only make the interface more more cluttered and unusable. I agree there is a problem in the current setup (albeit not an awfully big problem) but this is the worst possible “solution” to it.
its will be cool do it this automation idea
when i want doit automation in the song i push button and actived mode for work automation
This is something I much prefer too. The pattern editor is basically equivalent to a piano-roll, let’s try to mainly just keep it for the notes mmkay?
Sorry but that’s not so clear, how the Cubase or Ableton - like arranger would work well with the Renoise pattern editor, I would be pleased to see YOUR mockup and not a capture of an external software. I’m sure you’re able to draw something that’s not horrible and distrastrous. Thanx.
@kurtz I don’t understand how being vertical in the pattern editor implies that everything should be vertical? A horizontal automation is great and very intuitive to me and I would love to see a horizontal arranger as another tab, like the sampler or the zones editor (and the intruments tab to be back). However, I like the idea of a tiny vertical automation and effect values as columns as long as both are collapsable and optional. On the other hand I can’t stand mockups with vertical audiotracks, I just don’t get it, it’s counter intuitive to me.
The other thing I don’t understand is what’s wrong with current setup? I see those mockups more as an expansion to existing features than a bugfix. Renoise is useful and handy in it’s current form. At least for me.
1 - it’s a question of axis, when I’m tracking in the pattern editor I follow a Y axis, and when I’m defining automations, I follow a X axis, this is not a big problem, just a bit “unnatural” ; then the automation editor only displays one automation, I’d like to be able to SEE all the automations for a track, and not be obliged to select just one, all this gave me the idea to get some tiny parallel views in the pattern editor, of course if you want to edit very precisely the automation, the classic horizontal view stays available at the bottom of the screen in the automation tab
2 - there’s nothing wrong with the current setup, it’s quite good & efficient as it is, like you, I’d like to keep the horizontal automations, and horizontal sample editor/slicer as is, especially for doing very precise things, but concerning the general workflow, the pattern editor is the main core area, expanding it with tiny automation views, could help me to go even faster
Guys don’t misunderstand this thread, I never wrote I’d like to change every kind of horizontal tool by vertical tools or vertical views. I’d just like to think about ways to improve the renoise workflow, and detected some few things that in my humble opinion would help to optimize it a bit. If I ask mockups, this is because I need visuals, to think better. When I don’t “see” exactly things I can’t really think about how it could behave exactly. It’s very easy to imagine things in my head but when I try to draw a mockup I realise that finally things are not so easy and some unexpected problems would happen.
I like the idea of a vertical waveform and vertical automation, but i don’t think it looks too good in the screenshots to be honest.
I would rather have a button that easily turns the visual waveform and automation on and off in the pattern track and i would like it to fill the whole track with only a faint backdrop of the original pattern editor when on.
Then you could see the pattern track in the background while you edit the automation, then turn it off and back to normal.
Ah yes, a “switch” … with a switch we could decide witch enveloppes have to be displayed or not. We should define a color for each automation curve that has to be displayed…
An on/off button for each curve could be displayed, but also, maybe a button that “cycle through” all available automations…
I got new ideas, I’m going to try a new mockup. See ya. 
ok, I see your point now and I agree with you 
Okay here’s another ugly and disastrous mockup.
Usage :
- each vertical automation curve has its own [b]opacity /b, it’s own line color, background editor color, and filled curve color.
- those parameters can be wisely edited under the automations selector box
- those parameters are turned off by default, and turned off colors are represented by “X”
- when you right click on a "X"a color picker’s available, you choose a color, the “X” disappears, and the opacity is automatically defined as 70%.
- very different colors and various configurations can be defined here, I recommend to define very different colors
- when you right click on the wavelet (automation symbol) on the top of each track, it’s drawn in RED and activates/unactivates the vertical automation view
- each vertical view is automatically adapted to the tracks’s width, if you’ve got a big size track you’ll get a big size vertical automation
- you can precisely edit curves, by default you edit the last selected curve in the automation selector
- but maybe a “keyboard shortcut” would allow you to quickly cycle through editable curves
- the vertical curves editor has a “tiny playback line”, more precise, ready for the future (zoomable patterns)
- when transparency is wisely defined, you can precisely and visually align pattern events and vertical curves
- you can even stack lots of colored curves, but warning, to many visible curves would simply create a messy view
Still no good. Better idea would be to impose the notation upon the horizontal automation curves, but a separate arranger is still the proper solution imo.
we’re still waiting your perfectly designed mockups man 
Well that’s a silly thing to say since seemingly that’s only you waiting for them, and I never said I had “perfect” mock-ups, but only that I had made a mock-up of an arranger that could solve most of the problems I see with Renoise at the moment.
The way I see it is that the pattern editor should be treated as a note editor mainly. It should be our equivalent of pianoroll, and there shouldn’t be anything that doesn’t deal with the notes. Hell, vertical automation along with the Pattern Matrix would be a better idea even, or this. But please, let’s not try to incorporate every feature of the program to that one section and by that make it a goddamn mess. Verticality just doesn’t work since it’s a standard that time is represented horizontally pretty much always. The pattern editor works because it’s text-based and we’re used to reading from top to bottom, and it’s practical to edit that sort of information and short segments that way. Plus it becomes difficult because these days our screens tend to be a lot more wide while they are rather limited horizontally.
Ps. The post to the arranger I listed above is not a very good representation what I’m after but it shows the idea if you didn’t understand it yet. It would solve: the ability to have a good representation of the song overall, ability to zoom very close to the track (no need for zoomable pattern editor?), ability to incorporate audio-tracks fluently (multitrack recording editing!), automation and notation on top of each other, incorporate piano-roll(?!), and maybe even more.
okay thanx I though it would never come in the end, so here come your suggestions…
(1) the horizontal arranger itself, with horizontal tracks, and still horizontal automation curves, it allows audiotracks, it shows one automation it’s a very classic & proven concept, it looks like lots of other DAWs, globally those DAWS are good at dealing with audiotracks, but they don’t have a pattern based sequencer but pianorolls instead.
note : your automation curves look undefined. Where do you select them ? How much automation curves can you put in a track ? Now the notes editor : where is it ?
now… (2) the horizontally scrolling pattern-track … 
heeeee, 
it’s not ugly, and disastrous, hopefully. However, something I don’t clearly understand with those 2 pictures, do you mean that when users would click on a non-audiotrack, they could “see” a horizontal sequence of notes, and they would have to edit everything with their heads turned counterclockise… ?
I would never support making that bottom picture into reality but just wanted to use that as an example of what I think would be a better approach, but honestly I think even that would be a better choice. I also didn’t mean the note data in there would be editable there, but just bind the notes and automation more closely together, which I think was goal here in the first place(?). The arranger pic indeed is anything but finished, and once it (some time, maybe) is it will make a lot more sense. But, I think my job here is done. I just wanted to express my views on this since I can’t even begin to understand how integrating everything to the pattern editor would be even remotely good idea. It’s always good to have all of the different opinions represented 
.
I’m trying to see how I could enter my notes in a horizontal scrolling cell-editor like that… Maybe… If I join the 2 pictures it would help… let’s try :
Everything could be fine excepted that the notes editor’s cells should be somehow displayed horizontally so that they could still be readable. If you display notes in a horizontal queue, the timeline at the top of the screen (i.e. pattern lines) should be logically enlarged. Now notes edition : would a track be able to get more rows ? For example, in the previous picture, ther’s only one row, and so one sequence, but in the actual vertical track arranger you can add lots of other columns and build chords in the same track. Should this be preserved ? But if it’s perserved : how could it look ? Do we still need to keep the pattern commands cells or should we simply zap them forever ? If we don’t zap them, each pattern line step would be bigger and the timeline would also be larger. Asimple pattern sequence could have to scroll even faster from left to right. Now we need to define how automations could work precisely. How the automation curve selection works ? Yes your mockup looks like an answer, but it immediately raises other new questions and new problems.
I like the idea of seeing automation and sample information in the pattern editor, but I just rotated my laptop on it’s side and it’s pretty awkward to draw automation vertically.
I think integrating the sample editor would work better, especially with key commands to copy, paste, convert to new instrument, etc.
When working with long samples or synths with a long release or sustain time it can be hard to get your bearings and this would help with long samples. It’d be good to find a way to make this work with long synth sounds too.