Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Any MIDI apps that don't suck?
From: Chris Cannam (cannam_AT_all-day-breakfast.com)
Date: Tue Dec 03 2002 - 11:18:31 EET
This should really be on rosegarden-user. I'm cc'ing it now, and
setting Reply-To: to go there. I don't want to clutter up LAU with
RG-specific stuff, but I will reply briefly to each of your points
here just because I don't want to leave the LAU subscribers thinking
Rosegarden is no use for anything at all. I'll assume here that
you're using a version at least as recent as 0.8.
Silvan wrote:
> I'm having a bit of trouble with the whole interface paradigm too.
I think your real problem is that we haven't provided any user
documentation for anything except the notation editor yet.
> If I start from scratch, I create a segment exactly one measure long.
If you click-and-drag with the pencil tool, you should be able to
drag out segments of whatever length you like. They don't have to be
in multiples of a bar, either -- for example you can hold down Shift
to have no snap-to-grid at all. You can also create segments by
clicking and dragging with the middle mouse button using the arrow
(select) tool.
> Seems the "join" tool would let me merge segments, but it doesn't
> work. I can't find any way to combine segments.
Select them all, then use the Segments | Collapse Segments menu
function. (We will probably rename it to something more obvious
soon.)
> Should the Segments -> Auto Split item turn an imported monosegment
> into one segment per measure? It doesn't seem to do anything.
It breaks a segment on silent bars, as you discovered.
> Um... There should be a way to move the blue "play from here" bar by
> hand, instead of having to futz with the transport buttons.
You need to "Show Rulers" from the Settings menu, then you can
click on a ruler to position the playback pointer immediately.
> Also, playback should stop at the end of the
> song. It seems to continue on forever.
It does stop at the end of the song, it's just that the end of the
song is a marker that by default is something like 100 bars from
the start. The GUI for moving this marker is not really there yet,
but the Edit | Change Composition Duration menu option will do it,
rather clumsily.
> What I wanted to do after I created the first one-measure segment was
> drag the right side of the thing out several measures.
That's what the resize tool should do.
> For example, select the first one, then shift-click three segments
> over. It should grab all the ones in between.
Shift-click (with the arrow tool) does individual multi-select,
the function that you expect ctrl-click to do. You can also drag
out a rectangle with the arrow tool to select everything in it.
> Now say I have three measures in four tracks that I want to copy. It
> seems I need to do a lot of stuff by hand.
You can select all the segments in a track by clicking on the
track name button at the left, but you can't yet select all the
segments in more than one track, no.
> That, or some easy facility for splitting off everything below
> middle C and dumping it into a separate track.
Yeah, that's a basic function we lack (even Rosegarden 2.1 had
that).
> Now that I consider it, another thing you can do with Cakewalk's
> track/number highlighter thingie is that the Staff view will combine
> all selected staffs into one editor.
Well you can open multiple segments in a notation editor, though
they will all be on separate staffs. Just select them all then
use the Open in Notation Editor function...
Chris
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