Option to Disable Ripple Edit Mode

[Flagfoot]

Cycling through edit modes, other number key shortcuts like snap, and shortcut key combinations that include the number 1 like mute region means that often I accidentally engage Ripple Edit mode.

If I'm zoomed in or working on a project with multiple separate takes later in the timeline, accidentally entering Ripple Edit mode wrecks a project pretty quickly, and it's hard to notice immediately when nudging or making other minor alignment edits. It's unnerving to spend 10 minutes zoomed in aligning or whatever only to zoom back out to find that everything beyond has been screwed up because at some point I hit the 1 key the wrong number of times.

I'm embarrassed to say this happens constantly. Ripple is great when I need it but quite overpowered when accidentally engaged. I propose a checkbox in Session Preferences to disable it on a given session, since only certain types of sessions (or certain phases of a project) are at high risk of being ripple-nuked.

[Flagfoot]

Adding that I'm not a fan of too many options. I only suggest this because ripple edit mode can be so incredibly destructive. It's like one of those games where both basic and rare weapons cycle through together. Press A one too many times and you've accidentally launched an earthshaker missile and destroyed yourself.

Also, undo works fine, but to zoom in, nudge/comp a hundred regions, and find out a few minutes later that everything after measure 50 is misaligned - that's embarrassing. Plus I'm constantly cycling through Slide and Fixed edit modes and muting regions with ctrl+1. Heck I've even hit 1 when blindly tabbing through markers.

[Harvey Stuart]

Adding that I'm not a fan of too many options. I only suggest this because ripple edit mode can be so incredibly destructive. It's like one of those games where both basic and rare weapons cycle through together. Press A one too many times and you've accidentally launched an earthshaker missile and destroyed yourself.

Also, undo works fine, but to zoom in, nudge/comp a hundred regions, and find out a few minutes later that everything after measure 50 is misaligned - that's embarrassing. Plus I'm constantly cycling through Slide and Fixed edit modes and muting regions with ctrl+1. Heck I've even hit 1 when blindly tabbing through markers.

Not a real solution but maybe a way to mitigate the havoc would be to change your setting for

Code:

action="Editor/cycle-edit-mode"

in etc/ardour.keys from "1" to some other key in a less frequented vicinity of the keyboard?

[Flagfoot]

Good idea. Thank you.

[Scardanelli]

I'll second this.  I have on occasion forgotten that I've engaged ripple - and not disengaged - shifting everything further down the line! It really is easy to do in a big session with lots of tracks and gaps, and a real pain to find the point at which the error started. 

I'd also add that when engaged ripple edit should have a red or orange hue to the button - it's a bit like engaging record on the wrong track on a Studer 24 - a big flashing red light helps!

[Flagfoot]

Stupid question - but I still toggle Lock/Slide modes 100x/day - 

Is there a x-axis drag lock I'm missing? Like holding down shift while dragging? Having one would pretty much solve my problem. I remember seeing an option in older MB preference panes but it never seems to work, so I forgot about it and moved on. Common in other DAWs, photoshop, indesign, autocad, revit, etc.

Ripple Mode is the French Sheep Strike of Mixbus. Awesomely powerful(ly destructive).