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Old 05-28-2010, 06:29 PM   #96
Mike Stop Continues
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: New York
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamWathan View Post
I respectfully disagree... The whole reason why our menus are a mess in the first place is due to this fear of losing perfect backwards workflow compatibility with older version. It seems like the devs aren't willing to actually push forward with improvements to the basic workflow and organization within the software because they don't want to "break" anything for existing users. Reaper is the only piece of software I've ever used that progress this way. If there is a better, more efficient way to do something, shouldn't it just replace the older less efficient way? Old users will get used to it, trust me. They will even learn to prefer it!

So much anger arises when a company like Facebook changes the layout of their page, but a week later nobody can even remember what it looked like before.

We need to make forward progress and leave the past behind once in a while, we can't just keep spinning our wheels while new features and functionality bloat up the menus and GUI out of fear of losing the old stuff.
I agree with this sentiment entirely, and acknowledging my voice as but one among many, I'll speak my piece...

My sister drives her car looking in the rear-view mirror constantly and she's gotten into more accidents than anyone I've ever known. I've been in the car with her while she screams at yet another car 'riding up her ass' even as she loses her the outside of her door to the bumper of a parked Hummer. Never has she ever been hit from behind, and yet she'll drive slower just to spite those cars driving behind her on the freeway.

Me, on the other hand, I just drive. I obey the laws of the road, and when a lane opens up, I'll always take it, because doing so also helps out the cars behind me (whether or not there are any). I've never gotten into even a tiny accident, I've never had road rage, and I'm not a perfect driver, but I do my best. I once read a research report that shows that traffic often develops spontaneously, not because of an accident, just because of a random set of slow-movers, distracted drivers, or spiteful sisters end up within the same few lanes.

Probably, we all see a lot of stuff in life on the road. Progress and software development are like this. We've all witnessed the great shift between a hardware-based studio to a software-based studio. Yes, the 'feel' of knobs is nice, but we know unanimously that a computer is a better way to make music. Maybe 10 years ago, some could argue that there were advantages to hardware music, but we made it over the hump. We're in the new paradigm.

We should encourage constant paradigm shift, if only to prevent traffic. But the great thing is, there are even better reasons than preventing traffic, because without traffic, the more easily, the more quickly, and the more safely we can get to our destination. The better our tools and the quicker we learn those tools, the better off we are as individuals and as a community of drivers on the road.

With just menus, it's easy to allow people to keep their old menus. Just export 'em and they old menus are yours forever. But I didn't write all this to talk about menus. I'm really thinking, as we all are, about the future and about REAPER because if REAPER was in front of me on the road, I'd want them to go a little faster, if only to allow me the option to proceed at my own rate. If they weren't going faster forward, then I wouldn't even have the option and we all want more options, don't we?
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-Mike Stop Continues
ReaMenus ...the better menu set.
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