Reply To: Preview 2.34: Minor consistency updates

@thcilnnahoj wrote:

I’m reading my way through the getting started chapter, and I feel it desperately needs updated screenshots that actually show the things described (track toolbar, + track button, track menu button, + effect button, etc.) and don’t irritate new users with things that look differently than what they’re expecting. Us users could help out with updating all the pictures throughout, I guess, if we agree on some standards. It will still result in some minor inconsistencies like different device names, though. :-k

I haven’t yet announced that the getting started chapter is updated, because the screenshots still need to be updated. If you’d like to contribute some screenshots that fits with the text, then that chapter is all yours. If all the screenshots in the getting started chapter is made by the same person, I don’t think it matters that they deviate from the other screenshots in the guide. Just as long as the screenshots shows the default editor profile layout. A bright color scheme is preferrable, considering that people may want to print out the guide (saves ink).

Something that struck me is the top button on the new project page – of course we’re used to it, but I think it actually has a high potential of causing confusion or making the user uncertain of the correct choice. Since it seems only relevant to plug-ins (audio I/O is configured separately anyway), here’s a suggestion for an alternative: 😉
Put two of those little check buttons below the plug-in database button, reading “Mono/Stereo Plugins” and “Surround Plugins.”
The top button could still be used for an option to “create from template…”

You mean like it was before my last redesign of the page? 😥
I moved the stereo/surround option from the plugin options up to the overall project option, because it also selects whether audio surround I/O mappings should be created. This applies also if the plugin option is disabled. There is a hint about this in the “project option” popup help.

If the “new default arrangement” is not configurable in any way (I don’t think it is), why not call it a blank or empty arrangement instead. Might be more descriptive than default.

I’ve removed the “default” from the menu.

A little correction: “The layout and edit options of an editor are defined by an editor profile.”

Fixed.

After inserting an effect, you’ll notice that the new effect appears below the + button. This brings us to an important principle in Podium: The signal flow follows the visual layout of the track hierarchy. Audio starts at the bottom of the track hierarchy and flows up through the effect chain on the track, continuing up through effect chains on group tracks and the master track, until it arrives at the master output at the top of the master track.

(As far as I can tell there’s no introduction to group tracks, so I’d add something along these lines here. Feel free to rewrite or scrap it!)
Let’s create a group track to illustrate this. Add a new track using the method you’re most comfortable with, and enable “Use as group track” in the track properties dialog before clicking OK. You can move any of the other tracks you’ve already created into the group by dragging them onto the group track’s header in the tracklist (Or why not in the mixer? Nudge, nudge. :wink:).
All signals produced on tracks inside a group will flow up through the group track, thereby being affected by its level and pan settings, as well as any effects inserted on the group track.
Tracks placed inside of groups are termed child tracks. The view of all of a group’s child tracks can be collapsed by clicking the collapse button in the top left corner on group track header, and expanded again in the same way.

Next, let’s add a mixer bus. A bus allows you to extract audio from one or more tracks using a bus send, and then inject the mixed bus output to one or more tracks using a bus return.

You’re welcome to add this if you like. This will mean that the section will wrap around on a new page. I tried to keep the text in each section short enough to fit on one page.