Song editor and Beat\bassline's instrument grouping

[vlad0337187]

Hello dear friends.

I searched for the same issues, but I found only groups in Mixer: #606 and other groups (not such as I described here) in Song Editor: #1212 (there author wanted to group patterns, not instruments).

First time when I used LMMS (after FL Studio), I thought that pattern system in last was better than in LMMS. The tracks took lesser place in comparison with LMMS, I could place one pattern on the Playlist (in LMMS it's called Song editor) several times with lesser efforts. Year or several years ago I wrote about this on forum, but without any comments.
But when I used FL Studio again, I felt that it's approach has disadvantages too. Maybe lesser than in LMMS, but has too.

Also I thought:
-what about people, who got used to the tracker DAWs? They like approach with one instrument per track;
-what about complicity to developers to rewrite many code and have several disadvantages of FL Studio's approach and negative reaction of people (used to classic tracker system)? Would this work be waste?

So I thought that there must be a way to remove several disadvantages of current LMMS's tracker system without rewriting half of program and without negative reaction from people by other side with guaranteed improvement.

If to group some instruments to something like folders, than readability of instrument list will increase;
amount of tracks not needed at the current moment will decrease.
And if to make color system for patterns\blocks, which I'll write to issues later,
than the convenience of using LMMS will increase in several times.
And this will be without extra large efforts from developers.

Also I suggested to make blocks of patterns here: #2903 (yes, it's me who cannot draw exactly and make such awful sketches =) ), but this will need too much code rewriting.

Sketch before:

Here we can see that all instruments are in one list, if we will add many instruments to list, it'll be difficult to search for needed one (I'm often faced with this).

Here is sketch after:

Here we can see two groups "Guitars" and "percussion". Group guitars has 13 instruments (widget just before indicator of the presence of sound), group "percussion" has 2 instruments.
Groups are highlighted with more light color than general instruments, the instruments in group are highlighted with more dark color - this is for readability.

The green arrows at the left of group's widgets are for folding and unfolding the groups. Group "Guitars" is folded, group "percussion" is unfolded.

Instruments inside the group can be moved only inside this group by mouse. To move instrument outside the group you can press the button with gear and choose "move outside group" line.
Than the instrument can be moved in general list between other instruments and groups.

Also, maybe it's better to remove volume\pan controller from group's widget and leave them only in instrument's widget.
This will increase difference between groups and instruments and extra code to handle changing volume of groups, instruments in groups, instruments, that were just ungrouped or grouped and other implicit moments.

What about patterns in Song editor.
How will patterns of folded groups will be drawn in the Song editor?
Of course they must not be overlaying each other - this will make confusion.
Instrument, that will be at the top of all other in the group must have priority to be drawn.
If not all patterns are busy with first instrument (there are free spaces), than if second instrument has patterns there, they will be drawn (if second instrument's patters are absent - than third and etc).

Also we can make patterns of instruments with low priority be darker, depending on their position in group
(only in the track of folded group, when group is unfolded, each instrument's patterns in Song editor must have normal color). But this (nuances with colors) can be an extra work for programmers.

Other improvements.

• Maybe it would be also good to mark some instruments to to be displayed in result group view.

Possible problems.

• If user opens some pattern, but in Beat-Bassline Editor already is opened group from other pattern, than he'll need each time to reopen it. Solution: this simply could be solved with remembering: in which pattern which groups were opened, which were closed and restoring that state after switching between groups.

My sketch file: instrument_groups_V7.xcf.zip

Please, tell me what so you think about this.

Best regards,
Vladislav.

[lukas-w]

Closing this as duplicate of #735, I believe it's describing the same thing.