This is feature would be really useful for me (and probably for many others who use similar workflow):
I never put the same pattern into two places intentionally, it always happens by accident and later causes damage to previous parts of the song.
Now that we have this large automation editor, pattern matrix and so on, this legacy pattern pool is kind of annoying. My proposal is that there is a setting in song settings: “Force patterns unique”, which ensures there is never two patterns with the same number in the song.
In practice:
The number in the playlist editor becomes the order nr: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …
The arrow buttons are gone, there is only: Duplicate, Create new and Delete
(I kinda realize this is too big feature for beta, the lack of this feature just annoys the hell out of me: Just discovered I have destroyed another carefully crafted piece of my work by forgetting the “Make block unique”)
I hardly ever make this mistake since clicking clone or the ‘insert a new empty pattern button’ create unique patterns. Simply stop using ‘duplicate’ or maybe this could even be scripted?
Well I often just drag some previous block from the beginning of the song. For usual song structure, I want the basic melody & chording to return after the chorus, so I copy the first verse after chorus blocks. Sometimes I forget to do make this block unique and I screw up the first verse too.
The point is, I doubt that there even is many people who find any use for the same pattern in multiple places. And I think eventually we should phase that part of tracker legacy out aswell.
I am annoyed by the legacy pattern sequencer structure that screws my workflow, too, and I support the idea from suva. 1++
I think the problem (well, at least for me) is that you cannot identify if a pattern is unique or a plain alias.
One solution could be that by default every pattern is unique no matter where it originates from and for situations where a pattern should be plain alias you can hold down a modifier key while dragging the original pattern. A tiny alias arrow (that everyone knows from an alias file on his desktop) could identify that this pattern is a plain alias and fucking around with it will change and mess up with the original and all its alias instances as well.
BTW:
Renoise is such an awesome music tracking system and its really evolving into a decent live performance tool. But its pattern sequencer is so annoying to me that I rather stick to OctaMED Soundstudio on Amiga as it had much more flexibility with a pattern-pool, a pattern playlist and a song sequence list, all independent from each other.
EDIT: All whining is useless, I need to get over my old habits with the amiga tracker and get accustomed to the sequence queue in Renoise, it sure has its advantages. (Its funny I can switch between a left steer and right steer car within seconds and driving both for many years now, accidental free, but switching a workflow on a fucking computer freaks me out )
I just changed the bitmap graphic of the create dupe button to a fockin’ plain black.
It’s invisible now. I shouldn’t do that, I know. .
Won’t keep me 100% save from accidently pressing it, though.
and get accustomed to the sequence queue in Renoise, it sure has its advantages. (Its funny I can switch between a left steer and right steer car within seconds and driving both for many years now, accidental free, but switching a workflow on a fucking computer freaks me out 
)
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