Moving/panning in the notation window?

[elmurfo]

OK, ok, I give up - I've searched but cannot find a simple way to pan around my notation window in DP. I waste SO much time hitting those little + and - buttons and stretching out the windows to see a particular area of my composition.

Those Photoshop users will know what I'm refering to when you simply press the space bar and after your mouse arrow turns to a hand, you pan around to anywhere in your comp....this is a very common feature in numerous artistic-based software programs but I cannot find anything like this in DP. Am I missing something obvious? This seems like an EXTREMELY needed feature.

Help someone! : )

Thanks,
Brian

[Dwetmaster]

Are talking about zooming?
If Yes you can set up custom keys for zooming and you can also use the zooming tool to zoom in directly. then you hit the zoom back key to get back to the zoom you were before.

Every command I stated here is in the custom command window.

Hope I understood what you ment.

[elmurfo]

Hi - thanks for your time.

I wasn't refering to zooming....just panning...as though you had a photograph under a border and you can drag the photo around under the border and view any part you wanted....except in this case, it's panning (dragging) the view of the notes around within the window. It's simply a way of sliding the view around within the window. Nothing changes but what you are viewing - nothing is edited.

Thanks,
Brian

[Dwetmaster]

Sorry but I still don't get it...
Do you mean 360degrees scrolling?

[elmurfo]

OK - you know how you have the scroll bars to move back and forth and up and down inside the window to view the notes that are on your timeline? Panning is the same thing but it would be where you can scroll without the scroll bars and move as far as you want by holding down a key and clicking and dragging as much as you want. You can move, left right, diagonal, up, down, every which way you want....free scrolling basically...togo anywhere you want in your notation window.

Can you see how much benefit this would offer over having to click on those + and - buttons in conjunction with moving the scroll bars - man, that wastes so much production time!

Make sense?

Brian

[elmurfo]

Basically, the benefit of this is to move around quickly.

I don't compose sequentially. I'm constantly moving around, changing durations, velocity, individual notes, start and end times....and I'm doing this all over the place so I need to be able to move around freely and quickly and these scroll bars and + and - keys just are not the way to do this....any feature that is implemented that allows me to think faster than I can move/edit is anti-productive...I'm really surprised no one else has mentioned this one!

[Dwetmaster]

Ah Ok I think I get it now. Here's three way to do this.

- The Mighty Mouse as a 360 scroll wheel that allows you to travel anywhere without having to go to the scroll bars.

- since OSX10.4.8 You can hold control and scrollwheel up to zoom in and travel anywhere in the page.

- I also use a shareware called controller mate to remap my scrollwheel button/mouse movements to scroll anywhere in the page just by pressing the scrollwheel button and moving my mouse. Now my mouse is working in DP much like the way it is working in firefox...

Hope I got it this time...

Good Luck

[elmurfo]

Thanks Dwetmaster - I work with a Logitech trackball but it has a scroll wheel as well - can't stand the Mighty Mouse or ANY mouse for that matter! : )

I'm surprised all of this functionality isn't built into DP.

Thanks again,
Brian

[Shooshie]

Command-ArrowKeys will take you a page forward or page backward.

Want the world's fastest zoom and drag? Faster than Photoshop's hand drag setup? Do this:

1) Hold down the Control Key and position your cursor ON the wiper bar (the green vertical bar that shows your current location in the windows that scroll).
2) Now, drag upward and it will zoom out.
3) Once you've zoomed all the way out, release the control key.
4) Move the wiper where you want to go next (you can see the entire song at this point)
5) Press the Control Key again, and drag DOWN on the wiper (you have not released the wiper at all during this time, so this is easy to do)
6) once you have zoomed back in as far as you want, release and continue working in your new location.

Elapsed time? About 1 to 3 seconds, depending on how much practice you have at it. That's all the time it takes to go anywhere in your song, and end up at any zoom level.

This works in the MIDI Edit windows and Sequence Editor. To a more limited degree, it also works in the Notation Editor. But it's not the same as the other two windows I just mentioned. BUT... if you run two windows parallel, with scrolling turned on for both windows in their prefs, you can grab the wiper in the MIDI window, do the trick outlined above, and then resume working in the Notation Editor. The Notation Editor does not work in Consolidated Windows, AFAIK. But you can go to the trouble of setting up parallel windows with one as the Notation Editor, and save that as a window set. Then call it up instantly to work that way using a keyboard command that you assign. Then you can do the trick by grabbing the green wiper in the OTHER window, do the zoom out, move, zoom-in trick, and shift back to the Notation window. Takes a couple seconds longer, but still faster than click-clicking the arrows.

Now, in Quickscribe (as opposed to the Notation Editor--they are not the same, I hope you realize), if you grab the green wiper with the Control Key down, it doesn't do the same thing, but it DOES let you move the green wiper anywhere in the song pretty quickly. Move it to the end of the page, and it jumps to the next page. Takes a little practice with this window, but you can get around in it pretty quickly.

Even though working in the Notation Editor might require a little set up initially, which can then be recalled instantly with a keyboard command, DP allows you to create workflows that work for YOU to help you get around quickly and work faster. The COMMANDS window is also your friend (Shift-L). Set it up for the way YOU want to work. The reason that it requires some setup is because everyone works differently. DP is pro-software that enables you to customize it to your own way of working. If it came already "set up," then what worked for you wouldn't work for me, and it would be very limited in its scope. Buy by being very flexible and allowing so many customizations, it lets us ALL have things as we want them.

I hope this helped you. It's not exactly what you wanted, but it DOES work, and in some cases it's much faster than what you wanted. Most people's first reaction is to say "that's not what I wanted." But give it a try and see if you can master the moves I outlined. If you master them, you will more likely to see the utility of them. Good luck!

Shooshie

[elmurfo]

Thanks Shooshie -

I was aware of the zoom feature but never could deal with it too well - guess I need to invest the time and practice - thanks for all the tips - I'll print them out and try them!

Cheers!
Brian