Mixer track selection bug

[Scoox]

Hi guys, I've noticed the following problem many times, I would like someone at IL to confirm it and hopefully take appropriate action, here are the steps to reproduce it:

1. Load a random FX plugin on mixer Track 1 and name it 'Plugin 1'
2. Load a random FX plugin on mixer Track 2 and name it 'Plugin 2'
3. Ensure the windows of both Plugin 1 and Plugin 2 are visible
4. Ensure both plugin windows are set to not detached.
5. Ensure the Mixer window is detached.

Note: Steps 4 & 5 are critical!

6. In the mixer, click the level meter of Track 1 to select this track (meter gets green border to indicate it's the current selection)
7. Now click the window for Plugin 2, thereby giving it focus

Expected result: Plugin 2 window receives input focus, but mixer Track 1 remains selected in the mixer
Actual result: Plugin 2 window receives input focus (as expected), but mixer Track 2 automatically becomes selected. It's some kind of "mixer track selection follows plugin focus".

8. Repeat steps 1 through 6, and then...
9. In the track inspector for Track 1 click the slot for Plugin 1 once.

Expected result: The window for Plugin 1 was originally visible, therefore by clicking its slot in the inspector should close Plugin 1, and Track 1 remains selected as that was the current selection.
Actual result: Plugin 1 closes, as expected, but track selection jumps to Track 2.
Why this is a problem: Many times I have a number of windows open, and it's easy for a window to end up behind another window. There are two ways to get to a plugin, one would be to start closing windows one at a time until the desired plugin can be seen, or a much quicker one is to click the plugin slot in the mixer. Unfortunately, if the plugin is already open (but buried under an indeterminate number of other windows), the first click on the slot will close the plugin, and then a second click will open it. HOWEVER, because the first click also causes the mixer track selection to change automatically, the second click always ends up on the wrong track. Now, in this example I'm using Track 1 and Track 2, but what if it was Track 1 and Track 100? Track selection would jump all the way to the end of the mixer, and then require users to scroll all the way back to Track 1.

The above steps illustrate the problem for a situation involving just two plugins. I've done some thorough testing using more than 2 plugins (basically, 3 plugins covers all possible cases), here they are:

Mixer track focus problem.png

A black dot ● means the corresponding window is attached, an X means 'don't care'. From these results we can see a couple of things:

1. The problem never happens when the mixer is attached.
2. When the mixer is detached, the problem only happens when there are two or more attached plugins.

In summary: track selection should not ever follow plugin selection.

And while I'm on the subject, I would like to point out that the way slot clicking works in FL is somewhat inconvenient. The first click opens the plugin, and the second click closes it. But what if the plugin is already open, and merely hidden behind other windows? In that case it takes two clicks to get to the plugin. I invite you to look at the way window management works in Windows, which uses a tried-and-tested system:

Case 1 - Window is currently minimised: one click on the window's task bar button restores the window.
Case 2 - Window is not minimised and focused: one click of the window's task bar button minimises the window.
Case 3 - Window is not minimised but it's not focused: one click of the window's task bar button brings window to front.

In FL Studio (note equivalences: hidden = minimised, mixer slot = task bar button), when a plugin's mixer slot is clicked here's what happens:

Case 1 - Plugin window is currently hidden: FL shows the plugin window (correct)
Case 2 - Plugin window is not hidden and is focused: FL hides the plugin window (correct)
Case 3 - Plugin window is not hidden but it's not focused: FL hides the plugin window, even though it was probably not visible anyway because it was hidden behind another window. At this point the user gets confused: "Did FL actually get my click? I didn't see anything happen?"

Something similar happens when you put three FX plugins on a track and all three plugins are open. If you put a big plugin (e.g. Harmour) in front covering up the three FX plugins, a click on any one of the FX plugins will close the plugin AND bring to front the next plugin on the same track. This is hugely misleading.

I will try to post a screencast to show you how this works in more detail.

If you use Windows (I believe all Linux distros and Mac OS work this way too), you should be able to see why this "feature" is inconvenient: it causes confusion because there's I suspect when window management was designed for FL not enough thought was given to it. I would love to hear your comments.

[Scoox]

I'm bumping this one until it gets noticed

[FidelityMusic]

Hello Scoox, This is a behavior that has been ...

[Scoox]

FidelityMusic (IL) wrote:Hello Scoox, This is ...