[DUPE] Expand Channels on General Tab

[bvanoudtshoorn]

At the moment, the general tab seems to be limited to displaying four channels at a time. This is fine, if you happen to be running at 800x600. =) With most monitors now running at 1280x1024 or better, it would be nice if there were more channels visible at a time.

Edit: Moved to the issue tracker: http://bugs.openmpt.org/view.php?id=687

[Saga Musix]

that's somethign i wanted to request aswell It's just irritating that it's so damn small...

[LPChip]

I dunno if its easy to program but probably not.

Perhaps it can be put together next to eachother without having a tap at all, but replaced by a horizontal scrollbar that scrolls in its own window, rather than making the entire page too wide.

[Snu]

I dunno if its easy to program but probably not.

Perhaps it can be put together next to eachother without having a tap at all, but replaced by a horizontal scrollbar that scrolls in its own window, rather than making the entire page too wide. :)

nice idea, i for one would certainly prefer that to the annoying 4 channel tabs.

[Saga Musix]

but there should be more than a scrollbar. if the scrollbar scrolls by "fields" and not by "pixels", it may be irritating to find a channel. maybe there should also be an input box to jump directly to a channel...

[Sam_Zen]

First of all, this space issue has to deal with the presence of the Tree View at the left or not.
I've disabled this, because I prefer a working space as big as possible. So on my 1024 screen there is spare room for 2 other channels, still without having the need for hor. scrolling. And with higher resolutions probably 2 more channels, so eight.
So being able to set the number of channels in such a tab, would help too, because then the total nr of tabs will be reduced.

[LPChip]

First of all, this space issue has to deal with the presence of the Tree View at the left or not.
I've disabled this, because I prefer a working space as big as possible. So on my 1024 screen there is spare room for 2 other channels, still without having the need for hor. scrolling. And with higher resolutions probably 2 more channels, so eight.
So being able to set the number of channels in such a tab, would help too, because then the total nr of tabs will be reduced.

My desktop resolution is 1920x1200 (24" wide screen roxx!! ) so I can easilly have like 16 channels next to eachother.

But maybe instead of the taps, make buttons to "move" the scrollbar to show 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16 etc...

[Saga Musix]

a scorllbar which scrolls by 4 again isn't a good idea imho. image you have a group of channels which represent one instrument. if you place your channels "between" to tabs (like, 2 chns on one tab and the other 3 on the next tab), that wouldn't be a good result aswell. a free scrollbar would be smarter

[Sam_Zen]

The idea of a scrollbar in an own window is an elegant solution to keep things inside the screen.

instead of the taps, make buttons to "move" the scrollbar to show 1-4, 5-8, etc..

Not much gain here, I'm afraid. It's a click on a button instead of a click on the tab, with the same result.

Jojo has a point about groups of channels with common characteristics.
This default of four channels in one tab has been standing from the beginning of MPT. But resolutions has improved, so BvO is right to question this. But personal differences in resolution have grown too. So flexibilty is needed.
I would prefer to be able to set the nr of channels in one tab first. Could have a preset choice 4-8-16, or more precise 4-6-8-10-12-14-16.
How to select these groups is the next thing. Could be with the tabs. Could be with buttons. Could be with a scrollbar.
A free scrollbar is not per definition smarter imho. It depends on how it's organized. Look at the scrollbar under the patternrow in the pattern tab. If I click once in the scrollbar, the row only advances 4 patterns, while the visual range is 32 patterns or more.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Here's an idea. What about combining the idea of buttons with the idea of channel groupings? For example, if you had, five channels (1..5) for a piano, you could group these channels. So (Piano)->{1,2,3,4,5}. Now, if these groupings were shown at the top of the general tab...

So, for example, you'd have something like this: (sorry for the ascii)

Code Select Expand


+---------------+---------------+---------------+----
| (Piano)       | (Drums)       | (Strings)     | etc
+---------------+---------------+---------------+----

+- PIANO --------------------------------------------
+----------------------------------------------------
|
| +-- Channel 1 --+-- Channel 2 --+-- Channel 3 --+--
| | BLARG         | BLARG         | BLARG         |
| +---------------+---------------+---------------+--
+----------------------------------------------------


This could, of course, be combined with the scrollbar as well.

One issue, though: this would force channel groupings to only be for channels which are adjacent. But this isn't really too much of a problem...[/code]

[Sam_Zen]

Good point about being adjacent. A natural thing, so no problem indeed.
In fact you ask here for even a bigger resolution of choice in the number of channels per group, instead of my even numbers.
And I got the impression that you also suggest different groups, each with different numbers, according to some name.
This introduces a random factor which only can be solved if all this setting of these groups is saved with the module.

[Saga Musix]

right, "grouping stuff" would have to be saved in the modules... but it's a nice idea in genereal a free amount of channels per tab would be a first step.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

There's another feature request floating around out there about these groupings. But as mpt is moving to having its own filetype, saving it in shouldn't be too much of a problem. There's already so much extra, non-IT stuff in those files (that's the format I use, anyway =P) that new stuff won't matter. =)

I think that it shouldn't be too difficult, though. Really, all you're doing is storing an alias to a set of channels, and then drawing a nice box around them on the general tab. If we're getting rid of the tabs entirely, and moving to a scrollbar-based system, then it's easy enough to do the buttons. All that you need to do is scroll by (channeloptions.width * n) + (groups.padding * m), where n is the number of channels before the selected group and m is the number of channel groups before the selected one.

Really, this is just an aesthetic change. It should be reflected in the pattern editor too, though. Of course, tying in with that other request, it'd be nice to do "code-folding"-style things on them in the pattern view. =)

Oh, and it would also be nice if they could have little icons. Which can be stored on the user's computer elsewhere, of course. But it would be nice to have a picture of a piano for a piano group, for example. (Preferably nice 24bit PNG ones, too. =) ).

[Sam_Zen]

2 BvO
I agree about the aesthetic change.
And it would be nice, that, if I load a picture, a certain pattern would start, playing n number of loops, with n depending on the percentage of red in the picture..
(btw : your www-link doesn't work)

[Really Weird Person]

Your eye sight must be 20-20 there, LPChip with a resolution of 1920x1600! I would imagine that your data is probably insanely small! The Start menu probably has about 250 programs in it and only takes up ¼ of the screen!