New command idea: shift selected block

[michaelsjackson]

Idea is if you have a few cells selected, you could have 4 types of this command:

• shift 1 cell up
• shift 1 cell down
• shift 1 cell right
• shift 1 cell left

But the entire selected block. It would simply overwrite what was there previously, to keep things simple and interesting. Then by just shifting around you could create variations from existing patterns. I guess this would be a quite general concept. Not sure if this exists in any other tracker software.

[michaelsjackson]

The above is essentially same as:

• cut block
• navigate one cell to the neighbour (up, down, right, left)
• paste block

It is only making the whole process quicker. I can try experimenting using AutoHotkey and see how useful it is or not.

One interesting use case scenario could be something like:

• you like a few notes in column 1
• select those notes as block
• shift to the side, meaning to the right, to column 2, so protecting them from any changing you might use on the original column, like transposing up/down, shifting forward, backward, deleting. What you like are saved in the other column already.
• now go on experimenting with the rest notes in original column 1
• repeat same process

Using shift-numpad +/- is very essential and cool here. Having a quick way for dealing with stuff you like already would complete this nicely I guess. This is actually the same what is available in buzz or buze as mouse based drag and dropping of blocks, which does same cut and pasting. Using above 4 commands, we could do it at least cell by cell. Just shift right, to another column, then you can shift it around again anyway, without destroying stuff on column 1.

I hope this explains a bit more the usefulness of above commands.
selected block: cut, go to neighbour cell, paste