New UI for markers?

[Lopyt]

I think markers are awesome, but their UI is rather difficult to use and not very user friendly. I think markers would be much easier to use if they were displayed as graphs, in a secondary tab of the sequencer. Perhaps the OS UI in general can be improved, to have the MIDI editor in a tab, the instrument settings in a tab, the markers in a tab, and maybe another tab for a song description and whatever. I feel like this could be done fairly easily and make OS more user friendly and quick to work with. 

The new UI for the markers could be similar to the way automations are displayed in a DAW, where you can add an automation track for a specific instrument setting, and add points to a graph that represents what the automation does. This way it is easy to see what the markers are doing, and easier to edit them, as they are not just signs stacked upon each other with no obvious title or value.

Here is an image of what I am imagining. Look at the lines and points,not the waveforms:




On the suggested tabbed system of OS, for the instrument settings, it would be a lot less annoying with all the popup windows that need to be opened and closed all the time, and many instruments advanced settings would be all visible without the need to close a bunch of subwindows, allowing for faster editing of multiple parameters on many instruments. It also would allow for more space if new features for the instruments are added.


Another feature that would be interesting is to be able to "key" a parameter to a marker from the instrument settings, at the blue bar, but this may be a little more difficult to do and I don't think it would offer too much of a better user experience, compared to the above UI suggestions.



I really would be interested in users and developers thoughts on the suggested UI. Please comment below on your thoughts of this UI suggestion!

[The Institute]

The big advantages, and they're huge advantages, of a DAW style automation system (like what Lopyt posted in the screenshots) is that it's very fast to add automation to a track (it would probably be ten times faster than it is now), and it's very easy to see what you've done, because the progress of your automation is displayed visually over your track.

That said, the difference between a DAW and OS is that in a DAW, you have dedicated tracks to each instrument or sound. OS puts all the instruments in the same display. That's not an unsolvable problem - to choose what automation to display, maybe you'd keep the instrument dropdown, and add another dropdown with all of the automation options (high EQ, mid EQ, etc), and the two choices there would determine which automation appears on screen. You'd also need to be able to toggle between automation editing and note editing, because the interface otherwise wouldn't know what you're trying to edit. And there'd need to be a 'Master' option in the instrument dropdown so you could edit automation of BPM and overall sequence volume.

So I'm in favour of the idea (I'll vote yes), but I think it might take a lot of work to implement.

[Lopyt]

I was thinking it could show the marker tracks progressively as needed, maybe a little + button that lets you add a marker track

[The Institute]

And if you can change the wording of the poll, I think that would be best -- I don't find markers or popups "annoying", so I was hesitant to vote for the option that says "yes I find markers annoying". I'm voting yes because I agree with you that a different interface would be easier to use and would offer us all more flexibility.

[Lopyt]

Ok thanks for the advice, how do I change the wording of a poll without making a new forum?

[The Institute]

lol, I don't know! If it's hard to change, that's cool, at least I had a chance to explain what it was about the "yes" option I was voting for.

[LucentTear]

I understand the arguments made here (especially on Institute's post about making automation much faster) but I personally enjoy the linear nature of blend markers and I don't have to worry about it too much with the current interface.

If we had a DAW setup, it would be more difficult to set point A and point B for blend markers. With the current sliders, I already have a visual of how high/low I want to set point B because of the middle point and red zones. I suppose this kind of concept could be implemented in the DAW setup but I don't think it would be as tasteful to look at.

In general I'm also very reluctant to see huge overhauls on the OS UI because while I'm glad the site infrastructure is getting more powerful, I don't want it to look like a DAW. There needs to be some annoying novelty about it while still remaining useful if that makes sense. If we add huge menus of anything, I think that new users would be more overwhelmed. The current setup makes it that new users eventually learn about new features and they're not all up in your face.

[pseudoname]

This post really struck a chord with me. *ba dum tss*

Anyway, I'm also seeing some serious drawbacks with the current marker system. So, with the help of MS Paint, I drew up a new design [attached]. With that out of the way, I'll briefly give my two cents about whether redesigning the marker system is worth considering.

As Lucent said, there is some novelty and uniqueness with OS's drawbacks. The limited instrumentation and vague, condensed mechanics* force users to think critically and experiment. However, as Lopyt said, OS's most powerful feature being displayed as a couple arrows on the measure bar and a drag-around menu is really cluttery and unfriendly.

As Lucent said, more UI overhauls may overwhelm new users. I completely agree, and that's why her tutorial is here. Personally, I think the Lucent Guide should be more glaringly obvious to new users. Kinda getting tired of having to tell people to read it.

Finally: This marker system is still comparatively fresh and new, and there have been LOADS of features since it was implemented. The potential of the current system is almost limitless and I've heard banger after banger after banger using it during my career. (Huge props to Jacob_, Liam, fox, and Xephorix for everything, by the way.) Despite it being that useful, I think it could use a "little" visual rework.



*such as EQ, an entire frequency spectrum, being condensed into 3 sliders, or this marker system being the way it is right now

[pseudoname]

attachment

[Lopyt]

I do agree that OS has a cool novelty and tjat shouldn't be removed in favour of a DAW browser thing, I do likethe way it inspires me to think differently about stuff. I don't think the new UI is too muchof a change, I think it would just really make it easier for the less experienced to understand markers, and for the more experiemced to use them more efficiently. I don't reallywant OS to change that much but clutter removal is domething I do want to change