Re: Advanced Looping (Bug #1605)

> On 5/21/22 5:09 AM, Lorenzo Sutton wrote:
>> I tried to activate advanced looping (and admittedly did not read the 
>> whole discussion on the bug, wonder if it would be useful to have 
>> these discussions possibly impacting feature changes / updates in the 
>> user list ;-)

   The idea is to discuss in the bug report, then once we're ready, drum 
up some interest on the user list.  There's a lot of noise regarding a 
feature request like this at first.  Better to keep it in the bug report.

>> So as I understand correctly if advanced looping is on in preferences 
>> selecting the loop toggle in the transport will loop from start to the 
>> end of the last segment unless a loop range is defined. Correct?

   Yes.

>> This can actually be a useful feature although I'm not sure if I'd use 
>> it a lot (I use looping a lot to dig into specific small portions of 
>> pieces or to create base 'loop' / repetitive materials), but could 
>> find uses for it

   Ok.  Sounds like Advanced Looping still supports these use cases 
without getting in your way.  A year from now we want to make Advanced 
Looping the default, but we don't want to break the UI for anyone along 
the way.

>> One caveat is that I think unless the new stop at last segment feature 
>> (also very useful!) is toggled this should loop until the end of the 
>> composition. Why? One might leave one or two empty measures at the end 
>> e.g. to account for fading effect (reverb, delay tails), and want 
>> those incorporated.

   I've added this to the todo.

   Thanks for providing some insight into the uses for this.  The fact 
that Rosegarden keeps rolling after the last segment ends has been 
labeled as useless by multiple people, but I keep defending it to make 
sure it's there for those who need it.  Any user-perspective you can 
provide will help me get everyone onboard and result in more 
constructive contributions.

>> One thing I'm thinking as we're talking about looping and given this 
>> new feature: should we move / replicate the loop toggles in the main 
>> window somewhere around the transport controls we have there? while 
>> the transport is easy to toggle with t 't' key-press, I think it would 
>> be really handy (and pretty idiomatic for a sequencer) to have a 
>> button there?

   Yes.  A toolbar button would be great idea.  This gets us closer to 
Ellie's reference, Reaper (see bug 1605).  It has a loop button 
prominently on the main window.  We should as well.  I've added it to 
the todo list.

>> Finally: small note for the tooltip. you can achieve what is done with 
>> right-click also by doing SHIFT + left click ;-)

   I'll make a note of that.

   I think the next steps on this will be some code cleanup and 
simplification followed by implementation of your suggestions and I have 
a couple as well.  Once those are done we'll have an announcement and a 
comment period here.

Ted.