I am assuming that this would be an optional feature if it ever was implemented. I quite like my jerky scrolling, thank you very much.
Because I’m sure a flash mockup would be a processing accurate demonstration of Renoise’s proprietary user interface engine.
cough
It will give datasette an idea of whether or not smooth scrolling is harder to keep track of for his eyes than something jumping 10 pixels at a time, yes.
Computersette’s example is kind of irrefutable evidence. If you watch the current line, in pattern follow mode, if your latency is decent (ASIO or sub 100ms anyway), a note hitting the highlighted line immediatly “pops” in view; There is simply no doubt which note triggered what. This is particularly useful for drums.
If you want another example, try following text as it scrolls by the point you are focusing at. Hell, mock it up in notepad or something. It’s fucking terrible.
I think what it really boils down to is clarity. Trackers are, sorry to say dudes, step sequencers. Messing with what a step constitutes is a bad idea. You can smooth scroll a piano roll all you want, but what matters in a piano roll is the instant the playhead crosses the beginning of a note, and it’s not that clear when you are dealing with “note entry points” the height of a line tick.
To be honest with you, i’d be appalled if i was forced to use a tracker with smooth scrolling. I’d turn it off, or look for an alternative package in a heartbeat. It’s that fundamental a conceit.
Funny discussion, I wonder if the views on this would be the same if Ultimate Soundtracker had smooth scrolling patterns. 
Personally I’m not sure if I would use it or not, but on the other hand I do think there are improvement to be made in the pattern editor to gain clarity of what is going on, this might or could be helpful. Then again, maybe not.
Why? You wouldn’t want others to have an option you wouldn’t use?
Meh.
Yep, this would make you dizzy trying to read data while it is scrolling - but guess what, this feature is not for that purpose. I don’t read data much when playing back, I just appreciate the general feeling of “some notes here, some effects over there”. I mainly pay attention to the beats, so a smoother impression of how fast the song is (and smooth scrolling would undisputably give that) is more important to me than “data” I cannot “read” anyway, smooth scrolling or not.
Yeah. Sure. That must be the reason EVERY lister I use a lot that has smooth scrolling is a lot easier to use quickly (for me), and is probably also the reason why smooth scrolling was there first, until better computers came along and discrete step “scrolling” was invented… 
So maybe it’s really not that hot a suggestion for the pattern editor (I’d still love to see it), but it’s a must have for long lists (hey - Disk Op?)
(there is a reason why DSP’s slide around when you enable GUI fx - it makes it much easier to see what goes where… so really, don’t just dismiss this because you can’t imagine it…)
Here’s a quick and dirty flash mockup (flash is not super good at smooth scrolling)
I wouldn’t get more dizzy with this, than trying to follow a jerky note just to read it.
Anyway this is 100% a matter of opinion/taste 
See, i absolutely hate looking at that mockup. It’s physically exhausting for me, my eyes keep flicking down to catch the next line to look at. It’s like sitting in a train looking out the window. Unless you have a point far off in the horizon for you to rest your eyes on, your natural instinct is to find points of reference. You wind up, wether you want to or not, constantly “locking on” to shit that’s only in your field of view for a few moments, and then have to reacquire. If you’re like me, this makes driving in enclosed areas like tunnels or forest roads absolute hell. Vomit comet!
Not being able to have a stable point of reference is what causes car sickness, and having ones current point of reference not correspond with the signals your balance organs are sending your brain is what causes air and sea sickness.
When you are looking at the pattern scroll by in a stepwise manner, your brain is viewing the column/row matrix as though it were a shifting pattern, rather than a moving picture, and the highlighted line/playback position serves as a constant point of reference. In effect, it lets you ignore all the noise and concentrate on a small area that is immediatly relevant. There is a huge difference.
Then why even bother responding? It’s a suggestion for an optional feature you have no use for, end of story. Why can’t you accept the fact that I and others would find smooth scrolling useful?
Well, maybe so for you. When I made this I actually tried that out, by putting my hands above and below the center line. I was surprised at how useless that is (for me).
At least you can move your eyes in a fluid manner, when it’s jerky it’s jerky, and then you (or at least I) have to “lock on” more unless you sit and wait for notes to come into your view/grid/matrix thing.
Actually I keep locking on when it’s jerky and not really when it’s smooth. Take a chord for instance, try read four notes moving, now I move my eyes in a step like manner, whereas with a smooth behavior you could just move the eyes in a straight line between two points.
I don’t really work like that, think I read more ahead and around 
Interesting. Yeah I kinda see where you’re coming from, even though I may partially disagree. In effect your eyes would be scrolling with the pattern when you’d rather keep your eyes fixed on a point.
In essence, the current system is barely scrolling at all, which may be an advantage.
idk, I got dizzy enough that I ended up throwing up after that demonstration. 
Some people get sick of weird things, had a colleague that got dizzy/headaches when
playing FPS games even at max frames per second, some get sick when sailing and
some only when boozing or reading smooth scrolling texts.
Anyway, I’ve spent the whole day in a usability lab together with 64 other Renoise users,
data is now crunched and result is ready. It’s clear that this is irrefutable proof that
pixel smooth scrolling is optimal and the correct way. Have a look:
I should add that the tools we used were Renoise 2.0 and Renoise 2.6 Alpha.
But let’s make one thing clear, the whole usability group including myself can live
without it. It’s just an idea we are “Throwing up” in the air.
All right, let’s get dizzy… Cheers! 
Shit what a waste of time lol. The end.
No no, I’m dismissing it because I CAN imagine it, very clearly.
Sunjammer has already reinstated pretty much what I think so I won’t bother repeating it.
No harm in having the option in there I guess but:
- It’ll suck
- It’ll eat CPU
- You suck
(come on now, only kidding)
worst idea.
johann just don’t get it
I would like smooth scrolling.
To me it’s easier to follow, it’s one of the things that still bugs me.
IIRC the scrolling in FT2 (yep long time ago ) was pretty darn smooth, not as smooth as the flash mockup but much smoother than Renoise, madtracker etc. is producing.
I wouldn’t implement it if it would cause issues in renoise, but as an optional setting I would love it.
LOL? 
yeah, optional and CPU I mentioned in the first post - now troll elsewhere.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Renoise’s GUI handled by GFX hardware nowadays? If so, this will hardly eat up any noticeable CPU anyway.
I don’t like continuous scrolling at all, with speed 3/128 you already get a headache. I think it will help readability if we would have something like block scrolling, since following the highlighted cursor line is much more easy than following a bad matrixish movie . Seriously…now only you can have 2 options: Or the not followable matrix movie - Or the cursor will disappear after +/- 56 pattern lines… So sorry for hijacking this thread but I think block scrolling rocks more 
!