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MalcolmG · 09-21-2019, 05:01 AM

Just wanted to share a little victory I had today.

I've been thinking about some additional zones I want to define: one for working in the midi editor, one for working with items in tracks. I have these three encoders across the top of my AlphaTrack that so far I haven't used for much. I had wanted to use them to control the position and the width of the time selection. eg. use the left one to move the left edge of the time selection left when rotated anti-clockwise, right when clockwise. Same for the right encoder with the right edge, and use the middle one to move the whole selection left and right.

There are actions for this, for example, here are the ones for moving the left edge of the time selection left and right:

Code:

 40320 Time selection: Nudge left edge left
 40321 Time selection: Nudge left edge right

However I can't map an action to a decrementing encoder and a different one to an incrementing encoder. Can I?

While mowing the lawn today I realised there might be a way. CSI doesn't know squat about whether it's actually a physical encoder or a fader or a button. It just knows MIDI messages and what I tell it the control is. So I took my widget definition and changed it from this:

Code:

Widget Rotary1 
	Encoder b0 10 7f
WidgetEnd

to this

Code:

Widget RotaryDecrement1 
	Press b0 10 41
WidgetEnd 

Widget RotaryIncrement1 
	Press b0 10 01
WidgetEnd

Those are the actual messages that get sent in the midi monitor. I can then bind them like this in my zone:

Code:

// 40320 Time selection: Nudge left edge left
// 40321 Time selection: Nudge left edge right
    RotaryDecrement1 Reaper 40320 
    RotaryIncrement1 Reaper 40321

and it works like a champ. Very fine-grained control, much better than I get with my mouse. If I can find the right actions, I can see myself doing this for moving track items, midi notes, all sorts of things. Might even use them for moving through the FX in the FX Chain window from my earlier posts.

Just for fun, I decided to see what would happen if I also left the original encoder widget definition in there as well, and at first glance it seems I can have both definitions at once (although I've only tried binding actions to one or the other. Binding at the same time sounds like a recipe for problems).

I had been thinking I needed to put in a request to Geoff to add Increment and Decrement modifiers for encoders, along the lines of the Press modifier for a button, so we can selectively map actions to each direction, but now I don't need to wait.

It was also a good lesson for me to not always think about controls on surfaces and start thinking about messages occasionally.

Tomorrow I need to finish mowing the lawn.

09-21-2019, 05:01 AM	#4848
MalcolmG Human being with feelings Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 180	Using an Encoder as two buttons Just wanted to share a little victory I had today. I've been thinking about some additional zones I want to define: one for working in the midi editor, one for working with items in tracks. I have these three encoders across the top of my AlphaTrack that so far I haven't used for much. I had wanted to use them to control the position and the width of the time selection. eg. use the left one to move the left edge of the time selection left when rotated anti-clockwise, right when clockwise. Same for the right encoder with the right edge, and use the middle one to move the whole selection left and right. There are actions for this, for example, here are the ones for moving the left edge of the time selection left and right: Code: 40320 Time selection: Nudge left edge left 40321 Time selection: Nudge left edge right However I can't map an action to a decrementing encoder and a different one to an incrementing encoder. Can I? While mowing the lawn today I realised there might be a way. CSI doesn't know squat about whether it's actually a physical encoder or a fader or a button. It just knows MIDI messages and what I tell it the control is. So I took my widget definition and changed it from this: Code: Widget Rotary1 Encoder b0 10 7f WidgetEnd to this Code: Widget RotaryDecrement1 Press b0 10 41 WidgetEnd Widget RotaryIncrement1 Press b0 10 01 WidgetEnd Those are the actual messages that get sent in the midi monitor. I can then bind them like this in my zone: Code: // 40320 Time selection: Nudge left edge left // 40321 Time selection: Nudge left edge right RotaryDecrement1 Reaper 40320 RotaryIncrement1 Reaper 40321 and it works like a champ. Very fine-grained control, much better than I get with my mouse. If I can find the right actions, I can see myself doing this for moving track items, midi notes, all sorts of things. Might even use them for moving through the FX in the FX Chain window from my earlier posts. Just for fun, I decided to see what would happen if I also left the original encoder widget definition in there as well, and at first glance it seems I can have both definitions at once (although I've only tried binding actions to one or the other. Binding at the same time sounds like a recipe for problems). I had been thinking I needed to put in a request to Geoff to add Increment and Decrement modifiers for encoders, along the lines of the Press modifier for a button, so we can selectively map actions to each direction, but now I don't need to wait. It was also a good lesson for me to not always think about controls on surfaces and start thinking about messages occasionally. Tomorrow I need to finish mowing the lawn. __________________ Filter Theory \| CSI Notes wiki Last edited by MalcolmG; 09-21-2019 at 05:39 AM.