Cable Navigation via Minimap

Have any feature requests? No promise they'll get to Reason Studios, but you can still discuss them here.
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moofi
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17 Nov 2021

I suggest a possibility to navigate via the minimap while dragging a cable to quickly jump to the according routing target area in big racks.

This could be done by clicking the right mouse button while hovering over the minimap due to the left mousebutton already being in use for dragging the cable.

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joeyluck
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17 Nov 2021

Adding the ability to double-click to make connections could also help to realize part of this feature. Then you could just double-click on the first connection, use the navigator if you wish, and then double-click the next connection. Using the navigator might be more useful for people on small displays, as those on larger displays would find themselves dragging a cable across several racks to get to the navigator. But it would definitely be useful to incorporate several ways of making the cabling more efficient.

I bring it up constantly, but I have wanted the double-click feature ever since the Moog Model 15 app was released. That and the highlighting of possible connections.

Shown here:


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huggermugger
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Joined: 16 Jul 2021

17 Nov 2021

Voltage Modular has a nice feature. You Cmd/Ctrl click on a jack. Then keep the Cmd/Ctrl key pressed, navigate to and click on the desired patch point(s). Another cool feature is you can make busses for multipatching and re-use them as needed. For example, assign an LFO output to Bus 1, then assign the Bus to any input(s) you like, instead of using patch cables.
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moofi
Posts: 1024
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17 Nov 2021

Yes, the addition of double clicking sounds good, though even if it´s faster in connecting I personally prefer to actually drag the cable :-)
Working with the modular I experienced the advantages of manually dragging a cable in terms of conscious routing + remembering.

The highlighting of the possible connection jacks is a handy feature aswell.

Colour coding is pleasant for sorting cables by signalpath and or signal type, though a greater number of colours like brightness levels of several basic colours would be practical.

Regarding display size, I don´t really feel it matters that much. I don´t know what people´s racks look like, here they can be quite extended, then, especially when working at greater zoom levels it would be of use anyway.

Greater zoomlevels are aswell the reason for the recent middle mouse button navigation suggestion because at maximum zoom the grabable vertical frames can almost completely dissapear, making it more tedious to navigate within the rack.
joeyluck wrote:
17 Nov 2021
Adding the ability to double-click to make connections could also help to realize part of this feature. Then you could just double-click on the first connection, use the navigator if you wish, and then double-click the next connection. Using the navigator might be more useful for people on small displays, as those on larger displays would find themselves dragging a cable across several racks to get to the navigator. But it would definitely be useful to incorporate several ways of making the cabling more efficient.

I bring it up constantly, but I have wanted the double-click feature ever since the Moog Model 15 app was released. That and the highlighting of possible connections.

Shown here:


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joeyluck
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17 Nov 2021

moofi wrote:
17 Nov 2021
Yes, the addition of double clicking sounds good, though even if it´s faster in connecting I personally prefer to actually drag the cable :-)
Working with the modular I experienced the advantages of manually dragging a cable in terms of conscious routing + remembering.

The highlighting of the possible connection jacks is a handy feature aswell.

Colour coding is pleasant for sorting cables by signalpath and or signal type, though a greater number of colours like brightness levels of several basic colours would be practical.

Regarding display size, I don´t really feel it matters that much. I don´t know what people´s racks look like, here they can be quite extended, then, especially when working at greater zoom levels it would be of use anyway.

Greater zoomlevels are aswell the reason for the recent middle mouse button navigation suggestion because at maximum zoom the grabable vertical frames can almost completely dissapear, making it more tedious to navigate within the rack.
What I mean in terms of screen size if some people have large, HiDPI displays and they can have many racks. So before they can drag down to something, they would need to drag all the way to right to rack navigator. Not making a point against it, just pointing out how it might not be a solution for everyone.

As far as remembering, if done like the Moog Model 15 app where it highlights possible connections and subdues everything else visually, it makes it pretty clear that you haven't yet completed your connection.

I don't grab the rack rails myself because I use a trackpad to swipe in any direction. Speaking of, something I've found useful on my macbook using the trackpad is I can click to create a cable, then while holding that click, swipe with two fingers to get anywhere in the rack quickly in any direction. But it does make me wish I didn't have to hold the click at all.

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moofi
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17 Nov 2021

I feel double-clicking is the more comfortable solution because it´s not necessary holding Ctrl anymore while navigating.
Actually I´m quite happy to use "physically" represented "hardware" busses within the rack like the stock CV-merger and splitter.
Its use could be made easier though, like if you rightclick on an output jack and the connection menue appears, below "disconnect" there could be a split option automatically connecting the output to a CV splitter. If it is inserted in an exisiting cv path, it would keep that path valid by simply putting the CV splitter in between.
huggermugger wrote:
17 Nov 2021
Voltage Modular has a nice feature. You Cmd/Ctrl click on a jack. Then keep the Cmd/Ctrl key pressed, navigate to and click on the desired patch point(s). Another cool feature is you can make busses for multipatching and re-use them as needed. For example, assign an LFO output to Bus 1, then assign the Bus to any input(s) you like, instead of using patch cables.

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moofi
Posts: 1024
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Location: hear

17 Nov 2021

Yes, I know what you ment. :-) Then if they work at 200% making devices four times as big (2x height, 2x width)
or at 240%, even their screen can easily be too small. On a full HD display I can bascially see one rack column on 240%. Even on a 4k display I would still see merely 2 devices next to each other horizontally. Besides when looking at tracks/racks here I don´t think even a 4k display would help that much because I like one column per track/voice and also the vertical space can be quite huge in addition, saying moving the mouse to the navigator is still easier compared to scrolling.

Btw how fast is your trackpad scrolling?
And do people with HiDPI displays have faster scrolling aswell? If not, even at 8k along with let´s say 20 tracks spread out horizontally I would have to scroll across 5 rack widths from one end to another. Also reminding me of really not knowing why they removed the accelerated scrolling towards the display borders being at least present until Reason 2.5.

Yes, like said, I can see the advantage of not having to hold an extra key feelingwise. Then, in case of the cable I find having to keep the click locked is like having to hold the cable in your hand, like in an actual hardware situation I would aswell have to keep the fingers at the cable until plugged in or it would drop, what it sort of does in Reason aswell, when the dragged cable disappears after releasing before connecting. I´m all for a double click addition though even if I might only use it occasionally.
joeyluck wrote:
17 Nov 2021

What I mean in terms of screen size if some people have large, HiDPI displays and they can have many racks. So before they can drag down to something, they would need to drag all the way to right to rack navigator. Not making a point against it, just pointing out how it might not be a solution for everyone.

As far as remembering, if done like the Moog Model 15 app where it highlights possible connections and subdues everything else visually, it makes it pretty clear that you haven't yet completed your connection.

I don't grab the rack rails myself because I use a trackpad to swipe in any direction. Speaking of, something I've found useful on my macbook using the trackpad is I can click to create a cable, then while holding that click, swipe with two fingers to get anywhere in the rack quickly in any direction. But it does make me wish I didn't have to hold the click at all.

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joeyluck
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Joined: 15 Jan 2015

17 Nov 2021

moofi wrote:
17 Nov 2021
Yes, I know what you ment. :-) Then if they work at 200% making devices four times as big (2x height, 2x width)
or at 240%, even their screen can easily be too small. On a full HD display I can bascially see one rack column on 240%. Even on a 4k display I would still see merely 2 devices next to each other horizontally. Besides when looking at tracks/racks here I don´t think even a 4k display would help that much because I like one column per track/voice and also the vertical space can be quite huge in addition, saying moving the mouse to the navigator is still easier compared to scrolling.

Btw how fast is your trackpad scrolling?
And do people with HiDPI displays have faster scrolling aswell? If not, even at 8k along with let´s say 20 tracks spread out horizontally I would have to scroll across 5 rack widths from one end to another. Also reminding me of really not knowing why they removed the accelerated scrolling towards the display borders being at least present until Reason 2.5.

Yes, like said, I can see the advantage of not having to hold an extra key feelingwise. Then, in case of the cable I find having to keep the click locked is like having to hold the cable in your hand, like in an actual hardware situation I would aswell have to keep the fingers at the cable until plugged in or it would drop, what it sort of does in Reason aswell, when the dragged cable disappears after releasing before connecting. I´m all for a double click addition though even if I might only use it occasionally.
joeyluck wrote:
17 Nov 2021

What I mean in terms of screen size if some people have large, HiDPI displays and they can have many racks. So before they can drag down to something, they would need to drag all the way to right to rack navigator. Not making a point against it, just pointing out how it might not be a solution for everyone.

As far as remembering, if done like the Moog Model 15 app where it highlights possible connections and subdues everything else visually, it makes it pretty clear that you haven't yet completed your connection.

I don't grab the rack rails myself because I use a trackpad to swipe in any direction. Speaking of, something I've found useful on my macbook using the trackpad is I can click to create a cable, then while holding that click, swipe with two fingers to get anywhere in the rack quickly in any direction. But it does make me wish I didn't have to hold the click at all.
Scrolling is very fast for me. It's like swiping on your phone or tablet—it's inertial scrolling in any direction. I can swipe across tons of racks and from top to bottom with tons of devices in an instant with one quick swipe.

As far as double-clicking, the first double-click doesn't have to create a cable. It could be like the Moog app where the cable gets created after both connections are made. Like they mentioned in that video, and as it was brought up, connecting cables the click and drag method had always been seen as cumbersome, so that's why they added the double-click option. You can connect cables either way you like with that app.

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moofi
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Jan 2015
Location: hear

17 Nov 2021

Yes, I got that part, then I was talking about when manually dragging the cable. :-)

Instead of a trackpad, something like this in addition to the mouse could come in handy aswell. Especially if you consider Reason containing a zoom feature now.


joeyluck wrote:
17 Nov 2021
moofi wrote:
17 Nov 2021
Yes, I know what you ment. :-) Then if they work at 200% making devices four times as big (2x height, 2x width)
or at 240%, even their screen can easily be too small. On a full HD display I can bascially see one rack column on 240%. Even on a 4k display I would still see merely 2 devices next to each other horizontally. Besides when looking at tracks/racks here I don´t think even a 4k display would help that much because I like one column per track/voice and also the vertical space can be quite huge in addition, saying moving the mouse to the navigator is still easier compared to scrolling.

Btw how fast is your trackpad scrolling?
And do people with HiDPI displays have faster scrolling aswell? If not, even at 8k along with let´s say 20 tracks spread out horizontally I would have to scroll across 5 rack widths from one end to another. Also reminding me of really not knowing why they removed the accelerated scrolling towards the display borders being at least present until Reason 2.5.

Yes, like said, I can see the advantage of not having to hold an extra key feelingwise. Then, in case of the cable I find having to keep the click locked is like having to hold the cable in your hand, like in an actual hardware situation I would aswell have to keep the fingers at the cable until plugged in or it would drop, what it sort of does in Reason aswell, when the dragged cable disappears after releasing before connecting. I´m all for a double click addition though even if I might only use it occasionally.

Scrolling is very fast for me. It's like swiping on your phone or tablet—it's inertial scrolling in any direction. I can swipe across tons of racks and from top to bottom with tons of devices in an instant with one quick swipe.

As far as double-clicking, the first double-click doesn't have to create a cable. It could be like the Moog app where the cable gets created after both connections are made. Like they mentioned in that video, and as it was brought up, connecting cables the click and drag method had always been seen as cumbersome, so that's why they added the double-click option. You can connect cables either way you like with that app.

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mjxl
Posts: 600
Joined: 23 Nov 2018

21 Nov 2021

moofi wrote:
17 Nov 2021
I suggest a possibility to navigate via the minimap while dragging a cable to quickly jump to the according routing target area in big racks.

This could be done by clicking the right mouse button while hovering over the minimap due to the left mousebutton already being in use for dragging the cable.
Don't forget you can right click any input/output, to get a list of available targets ;)

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moofi
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Jan 2015
Location: hear

21 Nov 2021

mjxl wrote:
21 Nov 2021
moofi wrote:
17 Nov 2021
I suggest a possibility to navigate via the minimap while dragging a cable to quickly jump to the according routing target area in big racks.

This could be done by clicking the right mouse button while hovering over the minimap due to the left mousebutton already being in use for dragging the cable.
Don't forget you can right click any input/output, to get a list of available targets ;)
Are you talking about this funny list? :-D
Easy CV-Connect.jpg
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Creativemind
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Location: Stoke-On-Trent, England, UK

23 Nov 2021

:idea:
joeyluck wrote:
17 Nov 2021
Adding the ability to double-click to make connections could also help to realize part of this feature. Then you could just double-click on the first connection, use the navigator if you wish, and then double-click the next connection.
I love your idea of highlighting ports.

It would be super cool, even cooler than the spinning fan that's now on the back of ReDrum.

Great to see it in action. I wish Reason Studio's had more vision for their software rather than always making devices. I suppose the spinning fan was thinking outside the box a little and unexpected but served no actual practical purpose.
:reason:

Reason Studio's 11.3 / Cockos Reaper 6.82 / Cakewalk By Bandlab / Orion 8.6
http://soundcloud.com/creativemind75/iv ... soul-mix-3

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mjxl
Posts: 600
Joined: 23 Nov 2018

23 Nov 2021

moofi wrote:
21 Nov 2021
Are you talking about this funny list? :-D
Yep ! :)

Just type the first letter where you need to go, this probably narrows down the list to a choice or 2 most of the time :thumbup:

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moofi
Posts: 1024
Joined: 19 Jan 2015
Location: hear

23 Nov 2021

Didn´t know that, thank you :-)

Then it doesn´t really work the way I expected because when I type G for Gain, it shows Indstrlzr :-D
Yet, like mentioned, I prefer manual cabeling anyway for conscious/easier remembering routing, especially regarding complex signalflows.
mjxl wrote:
23 Nov 2021
moofi wrote:
21 Nov 2021
Are you talking about this funny list? :-D
Yep ! :)

Just type the first letter where you need to go, this probably narrows down the list to a choice or 2 most of the time :thumbup:

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