Considerations and suggestions about missing links between FL windows

[D3Mens]

Hello everyone. This is a post I made in the FL 12.9 beta but I understand it was posted in the wrong section. Please feel free to comment.


I would like to share some considerations about the way we can recall channels/clips/mixer tracks between different FL windows.


1) I've just noticed that if you enable 'Select from Playlist/Channel Rack' multiple selections don't work. This would be a real time saver.

2) Since the Picker panel have the ability to Clone/Delete patterns with a keyboard shortcut (thank you for this), it is still missing the keyboard shortcuts to clone and delete audio and automation clips (Alt+C and Alt+Del), otherwise there's an additional missing link between FL windows.
EDIT: woops, it seems it is still impossible to Clone/Delete multiple pattern clips in the picker. So there's definitely something missing also here.

3) There's another missing link from Picker to Mixer which if fixed could (possibly) link all FL windows together:
If I want to recall a clip in the Picker from the Mixer I have to press Alt+L to select the channel routed to that track, but then the Picker doesn't select the corresponding clips, even if 'Select from Playlist/Channel Rack' is active.


This means that there are connection gaps between FL windows.



Here are my suggestions to solve this problem and improve the general disconnection between windows:

- If I select multiple clips/channels from Playlist/Channel rack, the Picker should select them too.

- This means also that if I select multiple clips from the Playlist, the Channel Rack should select them too. (if I select patterns and audio/automations together nothing should be selected in windows that would not be able to manage both patterns and audio/automations)

- If I press Alt+L from the Mixer, each FL window should select the respective Channel/Clip.

- The 'Select in Playlist' feature in the Picker should be automatic, and so automatic all the other ways to select channels/clips/mixer tracks in FL.
Here there was a small debate about an automatic Alt+L each time you select a mixer track, but never received an answer once I've suggested a solution: Very simple but very useful feature request - show linked modules


Automatic selection of channels/clips/inserts without giving focus to any other window besides the one you clicked on.

This would mean that if I click one or more channels in the channel rack (through channel selector), the mixer should select the corresponding tracks (even if multiple), the playlist should select all the corresponding clips in the playlist and so the picker should select the corresponding clips.
Same thing should happen from every FL window in every direction. This would assure an easy way to recall/retrieve linked elements between different FL sections.
Then, even if all windows have something selected in it, will bethe user the one to chose which window to give focus by starting working on it, so no conflict should occur.
This idea would then maybe benefit even more from an automatic window focus by mouse hovering. If you think about it, the mouse is the extension of our eye, so it is impossible that I'd point to a window but think to act on another.


+ a couple of things I still feel FL is missing:

- The Picker is imho missing a way to select clips by Ctrl+click and drag ( or even Click and drag if you click on an empty Picker area), with the same selection rectangle as the one in the Playlist.

- The Picker could be detachable too: a new window class could help clearing out things maybe (sorry not a dev), but definitely give more freedom to users.

- The Picker/Playlist/Channel rack are missing a more obvious highlighting:

The Picker has a too thin frame which with a lot of similar clip colours is almost invisible.
The Playlist has that red coloured clip selection which is missing a big fat frame to better see small clips and to differenciate selections from red coloured clips.
The Channel Rack has a too smal channel selector which imho should be merged with the channel button + a click and drag selection method (same as in the Playlist).


Thank you for reading. Hope this can help somehow.

Regards,

Madma

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