It would be nice to be able to have access to multiple project templates.
Templates can be saved into folders for categorization.
Can the welcome splash take care of this with an additional tab for templates?
Yes or a script tool that makes it possible to join another song (without sequence data and just adding patterns).
[Thread cleaned up. If you have your own ideas to discuss that do not relate to the original post, then please start your own thread instead.]
+1 to this suggestion, in fact I was going to post this same request today!
Ableton has a nifty little trick I discovered which is if you save a live set into a folder called Templates, then it becomes a template… opening that live set will create a new unsaved project that has the same structure and settings as the template you saved.
With Renoise there’s the single template song (which is evidently useful Hasan, so I’m not sure why having the option of more would be a bad thing?). If you I want multiple templates, I have to save them as specific projects…then to use the template copy it somewhere so as not to overwrite the original, and delete when I’m done if I don’t want to save. Not a horrible thing but I agree 100% that having multiple templates is a good thing. In fact I love how Ableton handles this exactly: save it to a folder called Templates and now you’ve got a template.
Might this be possible with a tool? “Load settings from song” or something like that, giving you a new unsaved song with the same structure and settings as the chosen one.
I’ve been wondering about this too. Lately I find that I often want to start a song with a particular set of instruments loaded and some tracks set up, but I do not want to make any one of these the default template.
I’ve pondered writing a tool for this. My initial pass on behavior:
User stores template songs in some folder.
Tool has configuration UI to set the location of this template folder.
Configuration also has a setting for the default “save to” location for new files created from a template file.
When you use the tool to create a new song from a template it would list the names of the available template files, with some means of selecting one of them (and Esc for something to cancel).
There would be a field for the name of the new song file. When you select one of the templates it copies that template as a new file in the configured “save to” folder, then opens that new file.
I’d like to think that this is not too tricky, assuming I figure out the basic Lua stuff for read a directory of files, and getting that list into a Renoise GUI thing.
edit: too drunk. too cocky,
edit: too drunk. too cocky,
Here’s something I learned today: People subscribed to a topic apparently get replies as soon as they are posted; later edits are not sent.
I was, however, motivated to play around with how Renoise allows for a new song template. I was not able to find any UI or Config.xml setting that let me remove the template file once defined; I ended up removing it by renaming TemplateSong.xrns in the $HOME/$VERSION/ folder.
And I’ve made progress on my tool.
Often after I’ve spent some time writing code (for Renoise or otherwise) I learn that I’ve completely overlooked some simpler way to accomplish something, but even if that turns out to be the case here I’ve been learning more about Lua and Renoise tool development.
Here’s a tool: New from Template
Download: http://neurogami.com/renoise-tools/com.neurogami.NewFromTemplate.xrnx
Usage: Once installed, use the Configuration menu to set the folder where you keep template songs. and the folder where new songs are to be created.
Once that is in place you cn use the other menu option, New from Template, to select from the template songs to create a copy that will be the new song. You will also need to provide a file name for this new song.
Assuming all goes well this new song will then be loaded.
I’ve only used it on Ubuntu. I need to test it on Windows to see if the file-path stuff works. I’l also check it on OSX though the unixy file paths there should be the same is on Ubuntu.
Thank you Neurogami, that sounds great and I will definitely be trying it out.
I’ve just down some quick testing on OSX and Windows (Vista running in a VM, but I don’t think it will be any different on more current versions of Windows) and my tool works fine.
I have not done any rigorous testing for assorted edge cases. It should be checking that the new file will not overwrite any existing file of the same name. I also expect that Renoise will prompt you to save any changes if you use the tool when an existing song is loaded and changes have not been saved. But I’ve not tested that.