Stainless, allow me to describe a working method for using the materials at your disposal to learn DP, roughly in the order of priority.
1) Manual
2) Online Help
3) Commands Window
4) Forum
5) DP Tips Sheet
6) 3rd party videos, books, courses
If you have DP open when seeking help (which is probably more often than not), you might consider reordering the priority of those things so that Online Help is first, and for certain things the Commands Window would be first.
When DP was released for OSX, I found myself running to the manual a lot more than usual, so I made some index tabs:
That helps retrace my steps so I'm not looking up everything over and over. Next, I printed out the Commands Window (and also made a PDF of it) and did the same there:
Now the Commands Window enables live searching, so it's actually much easier to use it in DP than any other method, but there is something to be said for being able to scan, visually, the entire list -- 28 pages worth with the fonts section closed -- so that you can see options that you might miss scrolling through it on screen. These are just options you might consider. Also making a PDF of it (Print/PDF/Save as PDF) allows for advanced searching techniques.
How do you attack a problem when you don't know how to look it up? I'm going to list a step-by-step method for locating finding answers. 99% of all the things you want to know about can be found this way.
Step one: Open the Help Menu. Here you will find diagrams showing most of the features of DP, with a quick description of each. You may find your answer, or you may at least find some terminology that leads to the answer.
Step two: Look it up in the index. If that fails to produce what you want, you may need a more detailed approach. Read on…
Step three: If you look in the Commands Window, you will see that they are divided into categories. Transport, Selection, Polar, Navigation, Menus, and so forth. Look through the categories and decide which one(s) are the most likely to be the one to which your problem belongs. Then just sit there and read that section. Few of them are more than a page or two long, so it won't take that long to scan the list and pick up on the terminology. That's the point: read it so you know
what they are calling things.
Step four: From there, go back to the manual. See if you can locate the names you just learned in the index. If so, read the entries to see if they include the problem you're asking about. From this you will determine if you are on the right track. Probably 90% of searches will end here. Sometimes you find that the item you're trying to find is not really a part of the category that seemed apparent when reading the Commands Window. If that's the case, you can go back to the Commands Window and repeat, this time looking for clues to other possible terminology, and using what you've just learned to help avoid more dead-ends.
Step five: Go to the FRONT of the DP Manual. Here you have chapters and all their headings. Most of the time you will be able to locate the most likely areas to search by looking at these. It's MUCH FASTER than flipping through the manual, and you will find that the headings cover all the topics. Even then, the specific terminology may slip through, but give it some thought and you might find it yet.
When I don't know something, nearly all my searches will end in one of these five steps. But there are things that are just not covered in the manual. Those may include workflows, mixing methods, ways of using the MIDI edit tools (drawing tools, etc.), or whatnot. Then it's time to go to the forum. Ask your question as carefully as you can, using the terminology you have just learned. For example, when you say "the bar at the bottom," or "the locator thing," I have no idea what you're talking about. I often come to the forum when I'm not working in DP, so I'd have to open the app, wait on my VI's to load, and search the windows to find whatever you're talking about. Use the name for things.
Using DP is a little like exploring a jungle. Don't enter if you can't take care of yourself. Call for help when it's really important. This isn't school, and we're not teachers. Sure, we share what we know, and are glad to help, but when a single post contains questions that are just all over the place, it can be a sign that you're just learning, and there's an entire internet of information out there to search and read up on things like the alleged benefits of one format over another, or when to interleave, and when not to. (not much reason for the latter these days, though you will find special cases -- such as side-chaining-- which lend themselves to separate R & L files for each track)
Very important: I am not trying to discourage you from posting. I'm just trying to help you get as far along as possible before you do, and to encourage you to focus a little more for your sake and ours. Also, use the terminology when it's possible to do so. Sometimes there are things that we just can't find a word for, and there's just no choice but to say "that thingy that makes the other controllers disappear" (Quickfilter).
If your search is running on a half hour or more, and you're starting to throw things and rip pages out of the manual, you should have come here already. But an ordered approach to searching will lead you to the right place almost all the time. When someone asks a difficult question that even I don't know the answer to, I usually find the answer in the manual, or in DP itself. If it's there I'm probably just a little more apt to find it because of my approach.
Ok, happy hunting, and I hope you bag some big game. Er… answers.
Shooshie
