Select None (ctrl-shift-A)

[QVprod]

I suppose how common that shortcut is is relative. I never knew of it and just tried it in google and in the mac notes app and it doesn't work. Maybe it works in Microsoft Word? That said, I don't believe anyone is arguing that it shouldn't be there. OP explained the use for it to which there is a pretty sensible solution that is effective now and doesn't actually require you to click blank space. Being that it is impossible to know any individual's Reason knowledge, questions were asked and solutions were provided to deal with the "problem"

Actually yes, a user did say they didn't think there was a need for the shortcut I haven't seen an answer aside from clicking off of something. I've seen mention of clicking another note or another something, or clicking an arrow—which moves to another single note; it does not select none. But the only way I am aware of to deselect/'select none' is to click empty space...

I actually read that differently. The point (to my understanding) was rather to understand the need for it. In the example provided by the OP to select a single note to move, clicking the desired note gives the desired result.

If you're on macOS, you can try it out in folders via Finder... Select a few files or select all...and then use command-option-A to select none. If you are using Google Docs, they seem to stick to the convention of command-shift-A. Gimp image editor and iMovie do the same. iZotope's RX uses command-D for what they call "deselect," which I am familiar with being duplicate in Reason, so I changed it via System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts to be command-option-A in iZotope RX.

Good to know. Tried it in finder and it does work. I thought it didn't work in Google docs. That was one of the first things I tried, but upon trying again it's actually a different shortcut in this case: Shift Command A.

[rgdaniel]

In the example provided by the OP to select a single note to move, clicking the desired note gives the desired result.

No. Only if you click it TWICE. But not too fast or you'll delete it. As I said, if you click and drag one note while all notes are selected, you'll drag all of them.

[QVprod]

In the example provided by the OP to select a single note to move, clicking the desired note gives the desired result.

No. Only if you click it TWICE. But not too fast or you'll delete it. As I said, if you click and drag one note while all notes are selected, you'll drag all of them.

In simply selecting a single note, clicking once does that. Yes you have to click a 2nd time to drag. I'm not speaking against a shortcut, but in this particular example a shortcut wouldn't really be much of a shortcut in terms of speed. That's what I mean by there being a solution. Since you already knew that it's simply preference which is fine.

[rgdaniel]

... in this particular example a shortcut wouldn't really be much of a shortcut in terms of speed...

Yeah, it would actually use MORE keystrokes if you count the modifier keys... ...so bad example, I guess, but that WAS what
I was doing at the time, that sent me looking for the shortcut in the first place... to be honest, I'd probably continue to just click away from the note or click it twice (slowly) rather than contort myself into a three-prong shortcut, but it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing, dammit!

[joeyluck]

... in this particular example a shortcut wouldn't really be much of a shortcut in terms of speed...

Yeah, it would actually use MORE keystrokes if you count the modifier keys... ...so bad example, I guess, but that WAS what
I was doing at the time, that sent me looking for the shortcut in the first place... to be honest, I'd probably continue to just click away from the note or click it twice (slowly) rather than contort myself into a three-prong shortcut, but it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing, dammit!

Well wouldn't have to be if you are on macOS (maybe Windows has a similar function?) But once it's a menu option in Reason, you could define the shortcut command to be whatever you want via System Preferences.

[selig]

... in this particular example a shortcut wouldn't really be much of a shortcut in terms of speed...

Yeah, it would actually use MORE keystrokes if you count the modifier keys... ...so bad example, I guess, but that WAS what
I was doing at the time, that sent me looking for the shortcut in the first place... to be honest, I'd probably continue to just click away from the note or click it twice (slowly) rather than contort myself into a three-prong shortcut, but it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing, dammit!

This is why I’m so confused as to the “select none” request, as I cannot find a use for it.

In old apps where it was not possible to do what you suggest, I would command click on the desired object (which would de-select it from the group), then click again on it to make it the only object selected. Why would I not click outside the selection? Because my solution worked 100% of the time without any variables, and the “click outside of the selection” inserted far too many variables and required a different “muscle memory” for each situation because the place you click would depend on where you were at the time and what space was available.

So that solution was: search for a place to click (scroll around if there wasn’t any “blank space” to click), then click on it, then return your focus to the original object and click on it. My solution required none of this: simply click on the target with a modifier, then click again without. Changing focus around the screen is not as reliable a solution as keeping your mouse and your eyes on the target.

All to say, I guess that’s why I’ve never needed to “select none”, even when using software that didn’t make de-selecting a group of objects easy as it is in Reason. I found a more direct, consistent, and reliable solution to that problem long ago.

Apologies for it taking me so long to understand why I couldn’t relate to this suggestion! And thankfully, it’s not needed in Reason now that track selection in the sequencer works the same as the rack/mixer/note editor section (a feature added this version).


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[rgdaniel]

This is why I’m so confused as to the “select none” request, as I cannot find a use for it.

I'm confused why we're still belaboring this... Never imagined this would be in any way controversial... And I can't imagine how I could explain it any further than I already have... Also, joeyluck presented another "use case" that sounded pretty compelling. I believe it would be trivial to implement this shortcut, and can think of no argument AGAINST implementing it...

[joeyluck]

What cases are thee when you need to select none?

I can't say I've personally really noticed a lack of it much while editing notes, though I totally understand it if the OP needs it. I suppose I have just naturally just clicked into open space to deselect all without really thinking about it. In some ways perhaps thinking of it as "Select None", the OPs words, not yours, is a slightly misleading description as indeed normally you'd want at least one thing selected.

So with that in mind, the one area that I have found occurs enough to be regularly frustrating is selecting all sequencer tracks, such as for copy/pasting between songs. It's very hard to deselect them all, because the standard deselection options any normal PC users would attempt first—because that that's how every other app they've used for thirty years works!—nowhere was marked in the GUI to click out of it to reselect just one track.

You can click a track to rearm it for recording etc, but all the tracks are still "selected" in terms of dragging and, here's the one that's caught me out more than once, Ctrl-D duplication of that drum track I thought I'd selected, where suddenly your computer has frozen for five minutes while it attempts to duplicate 30 tracks

Click a sequencer clip? The clip will open as normal, but nope, all tracks themselves are still selected.

Click anywhere in the track info on the left. Nope.

You'll see there's an extra dark bit on the far left that indicates a track is selected? Does clicking even that reselect just that track? Nope.

Double-click the track? Nope. Still all are selected.

Create a new note lane? Nope. You've got a new note lane in the currently armed track, but all tracks themselves are still selected.

Try it now: Open a song with a load of tracks, Ctrl-A, and then try and deselect the bastards. Then just for lols click one track and then Ctrl-D it.

The only way to deselect all—afaik—is to create a new actual track (r-click, create audio track etc). So the quickest way is probably Ctrl-T (which frankly I had to look up just now, as I tend to create devices from right-click or browser), and "Create Audio Track" seems a pretty obscure choice as the inverse of "Select All", and with the added benefit of always results in something extra you didn't want will have to need to delete.

Anywhere you have Select All, you need a Deselect All: that wasn't brain surgery, that's basic GUI usability. The lack of it is the selection equilavent to including the Copy but not Paste. Windows apps at least do tend be a very erratic here in choice of shortcut: Photoshop I know uses Ctrl-D, while MS Excel uses ESC and MS Word is... fairly obtuse (arrow keys, but normally most I guess would just mouseclick whitespace).

Yes it can be quite clumsy and become a mess. How the tracks are subtly highlighted to show they are selected certainly doesn't help. A quick shortcut to deselect would help.

[selig]

This is why I’m so confused as to the “select none” request, as I cannot find a use for it.

I'm confused why we're still belaboring this... Never imagined this would be in any way controversial... And I can't imagine how I could explain it any further than I already have... Also, joeyluck presented another "use case" that sounded pretty compelling. I believe it would be trivial to implement this shortcut, and can think of no argument AGAINST implementing it...

Only one - resources taken away from things that need addressing where there are not other ways to work around. And in this case, the solution is presented in this update: just click on the one object you want to select in the group. Works perfectly for me in the rack, in the sequencer with tracks/clips/note, in the mixer with channels - I can think of no argument against working this way!

I haven’t seen any of the problem Joey describes with selecting a single track or mix channel after selecting a group, nor have these come up in testing as far as I’ve seen.

Sure, I totally see the point that there are other ways to do things, and that’s no reason to NOT want a feature. But in the Reason paradigm, where you get only a handful of new features (if that) per year, I have decided to focus on the features that stop me in my tracks rather than the ones I have to side step.

That being said, the solution to all the situations where you guys use “select none” is so much more elegant now that even as a “creature of habit” myself I would suggest just learning the “one click” solution.


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[rgdaniel]

Begs the question, how much resources does adding a keyboard shortcut take? Probably take longer to update the manual.

[selig]

Yes it can be quite clumsy and become a mess. How the tracks are subtly highlighted to show they are selected certainly doesn't help. A quick shortcut to deselect would help.

This is totally addressed in the newest (d93) version just release. It's simple, it's consistent across the UI in all views (finally), and it works exactly as one would expect.

Try it now: select all tracks, then click on one. Magic!

This is definitely NOT how the sequencer track selection used to work, and it was frustrating as hell. Thankfully that is now a thing of the past.

[selig]

Begs the question, how much resources does adding a keyboard shortcut take? Probably take longer to update the manual.

I have no idea, but they DID just commit resources to solving the problem everyone here has had in the past. Now you don't need to de-select all, so why add it?

To be sure, they could add it at some future date - but in the mean time, you'll probably get used to not needing it. And if you want to get work done, I've found it not worth waiting for a solution from the Props and best to work with what you got!

[rgdaniel]

I officially don't care anymore. This has become a pointless, endless, internet black hole.

[selig]

I officially don't care anymore. This has become a pointless, endless, internet black hole.

I don't get it - you asked for a solution to a very specific problem, and it turns out it has luckily been addressed with this recent release and is therefore no longer a problem. I would think you would be elated to discover this?

Do you not want a solution, even a better way to select one note from a group? The solution provided is a one click solution - do you still prefer a two step solution that requires a key command?

Sincerely trying to be helpful here…

[joeyluck]

Yes it can be quite clumsy and become a mess. How the tracks are subtly highlighted to show they are selected certainly doesn't help. A quick shortcut to deselect would help.

This is totally addressed in the newest (d93) version just release. It's simple, it's consistent across the UI in all views (finally), and it works exactly as one would expect.

Try it now: select all tracks, then click on one. Magic!

This is definitely NOT how the sequencer track selection used to work, and it was frustrating as hell. Thankfully that is now a thing of the past.

Yeah not really. Not consistent at all IMO. Select all tracks or a bunch of tracks and try to click anywhere on the color divider and to the right of it for the note lane. Try clicking anywhere on the Transport track. So now the workaround of 'just click a track' is more specific to 'but not there though, only this spot'

[joeyluck]

In other words, it does not work for note lanes

[selig]

This is totally addressed in the newest (d93) version just release. It's simple, it's consistent across the UI in all views (finally), and it works exactly as one would expect.

Try it now: select all tracks, then click on one. Magic!

This is definitely NOT how the sequencer track selection used to work, and it was frustrating as hell. Thankfully that is now a thing of the past.

Yeah not really. Not consistent at all IMO. Select all tracks or a bunch of tracks and try to click anywhere on the color divider and to the right of it. Try clicking anywhere on the Transport track. So now the workaround of 'just click a track' is more specific to 'but not there though, only this spot'

That's the definition of a "button". You have to click a button on the button or it won't work. I'm confused: what exactly were you expecting? There is a place you have to click, so that clicking elsewhere won't cause problems…

[selig]

In other words, it does not work for note lanes

Again, confused. You cannot select more than one note lane in the first place, right?

Can you provide a specific example, I may need more coffee before I'm on the same page as you!

[rgdaniel]

I whimsically noted the lack of a rather standard keyboard shortcut, while admitting that I hadn't even missed it, lo these many years. Not a big problem I was having, to be sure. This THREAD has already caused me more stress than the lack of that shortcut. I just (perhaps mistakenly) thought it might be helpful to drop it in here as a feature request. I guess, to generate discussion? Got my wish, in that regard, I suppose.

[selig]

I whimsically noted the lack of a rather standard keyboard shortcut, while admitting that I hadn't even missed it, lo these many years. Not a big problem I was having, to be sure. This THREAD has already caused me more stress than the lack of that shortcut. I just (perhaps mistakenly) thought it might be helpful to drop it in here as a feature request. I guess, to generate discussion? Got my wish, in that regard, I suppose.

And I'm glad you did! This is a discussion forum, after all, and not a place for the Props to receive feature suggestions (though they are said to read the forums from time to time, and even reply here).

We are about finding solutions for folks, and often when a feature suggestion is made a user will reply with either the solution (if it's already implemented) or a workaround (if it's not, and there is one). I find this to be a great resource myself, and even after years of using Reason I'm still learning things, many of which have been around for a long time that I've simply overlooked.

Apologies if this has not been a positive experience for you - really!

[JiggeryPokery]

I whimsically noted the lack of a rather standard keyboard shortcut, while admitting that I hadn't even missed it, lo these many years. Not a big problem I was having, to be sure. This THREAD has already caused me more stress than the lack of that shortcut. I just (perhaps mistakenly) thought it might be helpful to drop it in here as a feature request. I guess, to generate discussion? Got my wish, in that regard, I suppose.

[rgdaniel]

[joeyluck]

In other words, it does not work for note lanes

Again, confused. You cannot select more than one note lane in the first place, right?

Can you provide a specific example, I may need more coffee before I'm on the same page as you!

Well except yes, when you select a track it automatically selects all note lanes for that track. A bug IMO, as it really does not help with multi edit and makes it much less useful—you're forced to see all note lanes for a track. I think they must've hit a snag. And now presents a new problem where you have to click a very specific spot to switch focus on a track without losing selection! All because of this annoyance you describe that instead of being solved with a shortcut of deselecting, was given a little button with an icon that also does not represent what it does.

Again, it's not intuitive. You select a group of notes, sure you can click an area away from them to deselect, but select a group of tracks in the sequencer, you can't deselect by clicking away, now you have to select one by clicking in a very specific spot...but also be careful to not click and reassign your master keyboard on accident! And don't click the wrong spot if you are hoping to keep your selections and just adjust which track has focus, or you'll lose your selection!

So yes, this is why other professional programs have this function versus these UI workarounds.

[selig]

Again, confused. You cannot select more than one note lane in the first place, right?

Can you provide a specific example, I may need more coffee before I'm on the same page as you!

Well except yes, when you select a track it automatically selects all note lanes for that track. A bug IMO, as it really does not help with multi edit and makes it much less useful—you're forced to see all note lanes for a track. I think they must've hit a snag. And now presents a new problem where you have to click a very specific spot to switch focus on a track without losing selection! All because of this annoyance you describe that instead of being solved with a shortcut of deselecting, was given a little button with an icon that also does not represent what it does.

Again, it's not intuitive. You select a group of notes, sure you can click an area away from them to deselect, but select a group of tracks in the sequencer, you can't deselect by clicking away, now you have to select one by clicking in a very specific spot...but also be careful to not click and reassign your master keyboard on accident! And don't click the wrong spot, or you'll lose your selection when trying to keep your selections and just adjust which track has focus.

So yes, this is why other professional programs have this function versus these UI workarounds.

I only see one lane selected when you select a track, but I understand your other issue with multilane edit. But back on topic, if you accidentally click in the wrong place bad things can happen. Accidentally arm the wrong track, accidentally select the wrong clip for deletion. Nothing can be done about clicking in the wrong place! PEKAC…

I would say that a part of learning an app is learning where to click to access certain functions. Maybe Reason could do a better job of identifying these places?

So yes, you MUST click a specific spot to activate a specific function, and that spot is pretty big in Reason for selecting a track. You can click on the track name, the icon, the color area, that area below the mute/solo/rec buttons - just about anywhere left of the sequencer data lanes not including actual buttons (for mute/solo/rec).

And again confused because if you select a track it is assigned to the master keyboard focus - or are you using a different approach to key focus in Reason?

And BTW, yes, you CAN deselect a group of tracks in the sequencer by clicking away if you click below the bottom most track, and you will be left with one track selected (the one you last clicked on IIRC). I don't know if it's EVER been possible to de-select ALL tracks, since you ALWAYS have the key focus on an instrument. So I agree, in that one case the sequencer acts differently than the Rack and the Mixer, but I don't see any way around that.

FWIW, I see it as very intuitive to select a track from a group, a clip from a group, a channel from a group, or a device in the rack from a group, ALL using the same exact approach. And for those who still want to do so, you can click outside of the selection to deselect it.

Win/win, if you ask me!

[joeyluck]

Well except yes, when you select a track it automatically selects all note lanes for that track. A bug IMO, as it really does not help with multi edit and makes it much less useful—you're forced to see all note lanes for a track. I think they must've hit a snag. And now presents a new problem where you have to click a very specific spot to switch focus on a track without losing selection! All because of this annoyance you describe that instead of being solved with a shortcut of deselecting, was given a little button with an icon that also does not represent what it does.

Again, it's not intuitive. You select a group of notes, sure you can click an area away from them to deselect, but select a group of tracks in the sequencer, you can't deselect by clicking away, now you have to select one by clicking in a very specific spot...but also be careful to not click and reassign your master keyboard on accident! And don't click the wrong spot, or you'll lose your selection when trying to keep your selections and just adjust which track has focus.

So yes, this is why other professional programs have this function versus these UI workarounds.

I only see one lane selected when you select a track, but I understand your other issue with multilane edit. But back on topic, if you accidentally click in the wrong place bad things can happen. Accidentally arm the wrong track, accidentally select the wrong clip for deletion. Nothing can be done about clicking in the wrong place! PEKAC…

I would say that a part of learning an app is learning where to click to access certain functions. Maybe Reason could do a better job of identifying these places?

So yes, you MUST click a specific spot to activate a specific function, and that spot is pretty big in Reason for selecting a track.

And again confused because if you select a track it is assigned to the master keyboard focus - or are you using a different approach to key focus in Reason?

And BTW, yes, you CAN deselect a group of tracks in the sequencer by clicking away if you click below the bottom most track, and you will be left with one track selected (the one you last clicked on IIRC). I don't know if it's EVER been possible to de-select ALL tracks, since you ALWAYS have the key focus on an instrument. So I agree, in that one case the sequencer acts differently than the Rack and the Mixer, but I don't see any way around that.

FWIW, I see it as very intuitive to select a track from a group, a clip from a group, a channel from a group, or a device in the rack from a group, ALL using the same exact approach. And for those who still want to do so, you can click outside of the selection to deselect it.

Win/win, if you ask me!

Maybe I'll make a video to describe the issues to better show them.

If there was a deselect option, they wouldn't have had to add those small arrow buttons (which again don't show well what they are there for) to switch focus when doing multi edit. It could've remained the same as before, and what might've been annoying before (because it served no purpose) would now actually be beneficial—you'd select tracks and then simply switch focus by clicking anywhere.

In the newest version, there are master keyboard buttons on every track, so now you can switch focus of a track without switching master keyboard assignment. But don't click anywhere near there though, because that deselects your selections...

From what I recall, you are also a Pro Tools user. I used it a while back and this shortcut was in there then. Useful I think and would help to avoid all these weird additions and behaviors and where you can click rules to deselect or change focus without losing selection, etc. It's just clunky IMO and thankfully the tutorial window is there and hopefully will explain it to new users; something that veteran users can be confused about and disagree on...