detachable mixbus mixer

[Johannes]

We are working on a simple idea which I think will improve things without dramatically changing how Mixbus works.  The idea is:  keep the dedicated spot for mixbuses: but allow it to be resized to always show 4, 8, or 12 mixbuses ( the size is optional ).  Then provide a scrollbar under the mixbus section to access the remaining mixbuses.  The checkboxes to hide/show the mixbuses will go away, in this case, to remove that additional layer of complexity.  The master, monitor and vca's will remain unchanged.

Would that help?

-Ben

I like the idea of having a fixed number of mixbusses, but hate too loose the checkboxes for deciding wich Mixbus will show.

At the moment I work on a 60 Track peace, 8 min long. Mixing this on one 27 screen means a lot of showing and hiding tracks in the process. What would help me most would be more keyboard shortcuts (or at least Lua-Hooks to script those):
- scroll the Mixer window not only one track a time but ten or all shown tracks
- same for Mixbusses and VCA
- show all Mixbusses (expanding the Mixbus area), same shortcut to toogle back
- dedicated shortcut for showing/hiding each Mixbus
- same for VCA
- dedicated shortcuts for spilling
- Show only spilled tracks in the edit window 

I can imagine that at least some of those would be easy to implement and most of them should not fall into the make-other-users-unhappy-trapp.

I also feel that the VCA lanes waste a lot of screen estate. Could we have a second row on top of the existing one? Or even better: A stacked view that only shows Name, Spill, Solo and Mute. I guess I could see 10 VCA at once in one lane even on a smaller screen. And 95% of time I reach for something in the VCA pane it is those three Buttons.

Johannes

[Clint]

Seeing as there is apparently no way to detach the mixbuses, is there at least a script to "un-spill" so I don't have to fight to get to mixbus 11 or 12 that is off the screen and has to either be dragged into view with the one-pixel wide dividing bar, or slid into view with the same exact-same-color-with-no-way-to-change-it-so-it-can-be-seen slider handle at the bottom of the mixbus area? It is a real hassle for me every single day to have to deal with trying to make do with non-detachable mixbuses. How the recordx thing for V7 got to be easier and more important (simply track in Ardour) yet the detached mixbuses window is impossible because the whole world does not agree on how it would work confuses me. I am absolutely certain after being annoyed with the cumbersome lack of detachable mixbuses that NOBODY will complain if the mixbuses are able to be in their own window. It's a real hassle to me. My full time job every day is using mixbus to mix with, and several times an hour I find myself wishing the mixbuses could be in a separate detachable window. I cannot be alone in this.

[Dingo]

@Clint,
I understand your frustration.
It would be good to have a keybinding and / or Solo type button for Spill.
The way I handle it is to hit Spill twice on the first available Mixbus to clear the state.

[sunrat]

I just use show/hide mixbusses and have all of them showing when they are visible (or hide ones I'm not using in the mixer side panel). Default key is "Shift-B" iirc but I change it to just "B".
But Dingo's way is a clever workaround if you want to keep the mixbusses visible.

[Clint]

Dingo, that's a great workaround- I do use shift B often, but without some way to default to having all the mixbuses show, I usually wind up having to drag with that invisible bar or the invisible slider and fume. I wonder if the 'views' menu item could help, I never use that and probably should.