Hello, all.
This is probably thought out somehow, so could someone explain why the phrase editor is not included in the “horizontal sub panels” like Keyzones, Waveform, Modulation and Effects? Instead of this it is a toggle button next to the virtual keyboard.
Like so (bad mockup)
Probably because it is actually part of an instrument?
Hmm. All right. But so are key zones, samples, and modulations. What am I missing here…? 
Thought this too. But now I’ve clicked around and seen, that you can turn on the phrase editor when being in the plugin tab too. So I guess the devs wanted it separate from the instruments sampler, because you can control a plugin with it too.
edit: your mockup describes how it would belong to the sampler, but it must be somewhere outside imho.
edit2: and you call Waveforms samples 
…
Sorry, misunderstood you completely. Yeah, seems kind of strange to me, too.
Yep, It must be available to plugins also, this is true. So that’s why it must be present in both, Sampler and Plugin main tabs.
I first had an idea that you could have similar horizontal sub panels for the “plugin main section” too. And “Phrases” would be one of these too. But there are at least two design flaws in this: 1) it takes more vertical space, and 2)it should imply that the “Phrases” section is the same for sampler and plugin. So this is not really very good…
The place it’s now is probably better. It took me some looking around to find it for the first time, but in the end I think it makes sense.
It’s also a bit confusing at first when the phrase editor occupies the main section of the instrument/plugin “page”, but I’ve gotten used to it already.
I think you were on the right path. It must be in the instrument, because the instrument contains both the sampler and the plugin.
And you would want to control the plugin too. So from within the sampler, the phrase would have to go up the hierarchy and down to the plugin, wouldn’t be good imho.
That’s true. I think, GUI-wise it would be possible to let the top-end of the phrase editor stay below the “Effects” bar. So you would - aslong as you’re in the Sampler tab - always see that stuff (Waveform, Modulation, Effects etc). And if you’re in the plugin or midi tab, then they could let it cover everything.
Edit: What’s a bit complicated with that is, that if you then expand one of the upper bars (Waveform etc) then the Phrase Editor would have to automatically close, because a “turned on by big button” editor that isn’t anymore visible, would confuse too.
Actually, rethinking this, it might work. I still feel that a single “view element logic” for the main pane would be better and might be achievable. I should do a mockup of this idea…
Basically, just flip the phrase button to the same side that the other panes are, and instead of big toggle button, make it the arrow+symbol the other panes have. Let it reside on the piano keyboards side so no extra vertical space is lost. When clicked the phrase editor expands from the bottom up to cover the entire main pane using the same animation as the other panes. When expanding, the phrases button does NOT move so you can always find it at the side of the piano keys.
-> It’s still a toggle, It still covers the entire instrument (side of the piano keys which are always visible), and the plus:It’s coherent with the animated subpane logic of the new instrument window.
Not really about usability, but linked to this…
Is it just me that thinks it odd that something which is so central to the update is hidden away so well?
Which feature do you mean?
@shr: Probably the Phrase editor…
Anyways, here’s a mockup for what I was thinking a couple of posts above.
PHRASE GUI CLOSED:
PHRASE GUI OPENED:
“Why?”, you ask. Because this would IMO be in line with the other GUI schenanigans in the main pane. It would not interfere with the main logic of having the Phrase editor availlable for all instrument panes.
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And now that I think of it, Even the “Macros” section at the top would be possible to do in similar fashion.
A second alternative could be just to bring the “Phrase editor” button as such to the left side of the keyboard. Even this would help in finding the feature. All the other “subpanes” are on the left side too.
