better design for IO routings ?

[Reflected]

it could be designed much better to ease on the eyes..., currently it takes me lots of time (relatively) to trace the right channel.

I think that the texts come stright to the face and scream for attention.

the "DELETE ME!!!!" button is so loud! and the design as a whole could be much more compact with better insight/focus, instead of 2 colors odd/even there should be borders, everything with proportion of course to ease on the eyes.

seriously I find it really tiresome to see this window:

[IMG]http://img69.**************/img69/941/hardd.png[/IMG]

[EricM]

Tend to agree, I sometimes get lost on 4 sends/receives
already, the routing matrix does help a bit but not that
practical on large projects (80+ tracks).

[Lokasenna]

+1

I'm used to it, so I don't tend to have much trouble, but the I/O window needs a serious overhaul.

[Erkan]

I agree, it looks pretty bad to be honest.

[airon]

We had this discussion almost 18 months ago. Here are the resulting two designs we came up with. Both were improved and developed with the help of forum folks.

First, Brice made this neat design.



This design uses the mixer as a template, putting sends and receives in to their own sections, that you can show and hide.



And here's the one I put together:



This one uses the current design, just visually jazzed up and rearranged.

Personally, I like his idea more, though I find it too cramped together and visually busy, which is not surprising considering I have a 24" screen.


As for the routing matrix, we've had a couple of good ideas for this too. One you'll find in this post, complete with mockup, and a zoomed-in version here. You can vote on it too in this issue thread.

[Jae.Thomas]

second one seems quite better, less busy and clear

[EricM]

Originally Posted by airon

This! A LOT better! Nice job airon! + if they were collapsable, you could
quickly find by name the one you need on multiple routings.

The first one is good, but the mockup colors are awful, looks very cluttered.

[afantozzi]

agree. The second one is more readable.

[venti_cappuccino]

I like the 2nd design, too!

I would like to go one step beyond and build-in inserts per send.
That way one could use EQ or gate (or whatever) right in the IO window, and without *wasting* another track if there is a signal that needs to be treated before it arrives to the destination channel.

Example:
Reverbs often times get compressed and EQed. But I use to EQ the single tracks before they hit the reverb. That gives me the possibility to use this reverb for more instruments as it would if the frequency range was limited by an EQ post reverb.

[airon]

What about having a horizontal version(like Brices design), that simply uses more space than a normal track in the mixer does, so it can display the information in a less complicated manner.

I like the vertical display as well, else I wouldn't have made it. It's now the question of where this I/O window will be used more often. Should that be the Track Control Panel in the arrangement area, the horizontal design is preferable. If the user primarily works in the Mixer Control Panels a vertical design would indeed do better, though it would probably need to be wider than a traditional MCP track.

I've whipped up a few ideas, with the latest being on the right. That one has metering for both midi and audio.

[drybij]

+1 for me too.

I vote for the vertical faders version

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by airon

What about having a horizontal version(like Brices design), that simply uses more space than a normal track in the mixer does, so it can display the information in a less complicated manner.

I like the vertical display as well, else I wouldn't have made it. It's now the question of where this I/O window will be used more often. Should that be the Track Control Panel in the arrangement area, the horizontal design is preferable. If the user primarily works in the Mixer Control Panels a vertical design would indeed do better, though it would probably need to be wider than a traditional MCP track.

I've whipped up a few ideas, with the latest being on the right. That one has metering for both midi and audio.

uggh cant stand it, gives me vertigo, workflowwise

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by airon

What about having a horizontal version(like Brices design) [...]

I definitively think this one



is the best. With the send/receives collapsable to only show the track number + name, please...

[wallace]

I think this would work for me too.
The current window is hard on the eyes although has the functionality I need

[airon]

Ok, here's the equivalent to Brices design with the stuff we have in the other design.

On the upside, it's quite efficient and easy to scan if you have just one kind of send or output. If you have more, it gets a little more complicated. Once you get hardware output sends and midi hardware output sends it'll always get more complex in both designs.

The midi and audio routing sections in each send/receive are now icons, not text, which I believe simplifies things a great deal. The difference in height of the midi and audio routing sections is a test to see if it breaks up the repetition a bit. I find it's now easier to scan just the midi sections, or just the audio sections.

=edit=
I've replaced the former mockup with practical examples.


A normal audio track that sends to other effects

mirror on imageshack : http://img263.**************/img263/3...medesign16.png




A normal effect track that receives audio from a bunch of other tracks

mirror on imageshack : http://img193.**************/img193/3...medesign16.png

[krahosk]

Yes - definitely : the horizontal I/O design.

The original effects routing design, approach and layout is the first thing that challenged me in Reaper. And it still does.

ABSOLUTELY, who would not want a redesigned I/0 graphic interface?

+1

[Jae.Thomas]

still prefer the vertical

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by Fabian

I definitively think this one

Me too. +1 for this design.

[Alex.W]

Here's my idea on cleaning up the menu a little bit. It's not very different from what's currently there. Some pretty cool ideas happening in here! If I find time, I'll try to come up with a complete re-design for kicks.

[airon]

The symbols give it a nice visual hook. Makes the current design a little easier to scan.

Right now I tend to get a little lost in the I/O window if there are several receives or sends. A change in form of what Alex W. is proposing would improve its readability already.

[Reflected]

any smaller ideas?
like the mixer sends, small and obvious.

[airon]

For comparison, here's a version with the audio metering and routing lined up with the midi section. Does look a lot less busy, so the idea probably wasn't useful to scatter them.

[venti_cappuccino]

Wow, I like the last one by airon very much.

With its mixer style appearance it would be very easy to add an (just one) insert slot into each send... Hmmm, nobody else who likes the idea of putting a processed signal on sends that easily? I mean... it happens all the time in my projects and in my colleagues' and business partners' projects...

[shakey.oberon]

I like that one too, I like the way you can hide the bits you don't need to see

[EricM]

nice job airon

[Fabian]

That last one looks rather nice, but... The benefit with the "vertical" layout



is that you could/should be able to collapse the individual sends/receives, so that only the track names are shown (clicking the arrows next to "Vox Chorus 1" and "Reverb 1" in the pic). With the "horizontal" layout you cannot (easily) accomplish that, you can only collapse the entire groups, "Recieves", "Sends", "Hardware Output" etc...

That's why I am still in favor of the vertical layout, and I think that if what the current default layouyt allowed collapsing/expanding of the individual sends/receives, then it would not look so cluttered as it does now.

[semiquaver]

my only quibble Airon is that I have trouble seeing a 'down' arrow as input and 'up' as output! I think of signal flow as all in one direction, if that makes sense - don't you?

why not an arrow pointing down on the top of the input section, as you have it, and..
another arrow pointing down on the bottom of the output section...

Otherwise Brice's is nice: though again I would place the receives section on the left *then* the master then the sends so that a left-right signal flow is represented.

Either way these are both great improvements. Sorry for so much verbiage: I am short on graphic skillz...

[Amazed]

Jesus! I'm still trying to work my way round sources busses and auxes. Where did this receive thing come from? Way too hard....

[Lokasenna]

Those new mockups look cool, but the MCP-style sends and receives just seem like a waste of space to me. And, when they're collapsed, reading a bunch of ninety-degree text is arguably worse than the I/O window we have now.

[Reflected]

Originally Posted by Reflected

think smaller...
like the mixer sends, small and obvious.

ahem ahem...

[airon]

Originally Posted by Fabian

That last one looks rather nice, but... The benefit with the "vertical" layout



is that you could/should be able to collapse the individual sends/receives, so that only the track names are shown (clicking the arrows next to "Vox Chorus 1" and "Reverb 1" in the pic). With the "horizontal" layout you cannot (easily) accomplish that, you can only collapse the entire groups, "Recieves", "Sends", "Hardware Output" etc...

That's why I am still in favor of the vertical layout, and I think that if what the current default layouyt allowed collapsing/expanding of the individual sends/receives, then it would not look so cluttered as it does now.

Those little arrows next the send/receive names are not meant to indicate that there is anything to collapse. They're a drop-down menu indicator, which is why the same indicator is used for every dropdown menu, just a little smaller .

The reason for this is that several users rightfully pointed out that you cannot easily change the target(sends) or source(receives). This is meant to let you do exactly that. For example, if you wish to use the automation of one send-volume for another, just duplicate the send, and change the target track.

In other words, there would need to be a different element for collapsing sends/receives in the vertical design.

One reason I even tried to do a horizontal design, mimicking Lawrences idea(Brice refined it in to something very usable and good looking)as shown in the latest post, is that the vertical design is quite wasteful in space and something very different to what people normally use for mixing. Imagine a track with six receives, such as a reverb send track. You'd have an i/o window literally empty on the left-hand side right now. Quite a waste of space, obscuring more of the session than it would if you're using the horizontal design.

On the other hand the argument can be made, that the mixer already contains most of the elements you need to mix. The TCP does not, and thus would be complemented quite well with the vertical design if one would like to stick to an identical layout.

All this is academic in any case. I don't see the developers indicating interest in this subject yet. That shouldn't stop us from having some fun arguing about and designing it, however.

[airon]

Originally Posted by Amazed

Jesus! I'm still trying to work my way round sources busses and auxes. Where did this receive thing come from? Way too hard....

Receives are simply sends as seen from the target track. Quite simple, once you know to make that mental twist .

[airon]

Originally Posted by semiquaver

my only quibble Airon is that I have trouble seeing a 'down' arrow as input and 'up' as output! I think of signal flow as all in one direction, if that makes sense - don't you?

why not an arrow pointing down on the top of the input section, as you have it, and..
another arrow pointing down on the bottom of the output section...

That is quite easy to answer. Those arrows, and their colour are a quick visual indicator of the function. Without the colour, you'd have to identify the shape only. With only the colour, you'd need to remember what the colour's for. Both together combine to more easily trigger the memory of what function each section actually performs.

Keeping those indicators together as a header again means there's less scanning work for the user to perform, before he/she recognizes things, rather than spreading them across the top and bottom of the I/O window, which would also raise the possibility of creating empty, unused space at the bottom and top if you're going to line up the sends and receives properly.

It would either be

^^^^^
===========
===========
     //////(no downward arrow, sorry)

or

^^^^^^^^^^
||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||
          //////////

Keeping the arrows at the top lets the user perform a fast left to right sweep to find what he/she needs. The shape helps, and the colour nails it.

Otherwise Brice's is nice: though again I would place the receives section on the left *then* the master then the sends so that a left-right signal flow is represented.

Either way these are both great improvements. Sorry for so much verbiage: I am short on graphic skillz...

The idea of placing all in one column in the vertical design could have benefits, especially if there is only one or two of the receives or sends. It really depends, how much of the principal track functions will need to be accessed often or little. If you wish to access them often, the track section containing the Master/Parent switch, volume, pan and other controls would be best left at the top. If not, they can be relegated to the bottom, beneath all other sections in a one-column view. Here the Input section would be followed by all Receives, Pre-FX sends, Pre-Fader-Post-FX sends, then the main track control section, then Post-Fader Sends, then possibly followed by the hardware output sends.

We could use more width on a one-column design to give the track control section less chance of disappearing beneath the lower screen edge, necessitating scrolling to reach it. I'll work something out and post it here.

[airon]

Here's a possible 1-column vertical design :

Imageshack mirror: http://img695.**************/img695/1...medesign18.png

[airon]

The two-column design looks much more usable to me, now that I've had a chance to look at the one-column design a day later.

Would vertical metering be cool for the 2-column vert. version ?

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by airon

The two-column design looks much more usable to me, now that I've had a chance to look at the one-column design a day later.

Would vertical metering be cool for the 2-column vert. version ?

yes, yes and yes

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by airon

The two-column design looks much more usable to me, now that I've had a chance to look at the one-column design a day later.

Would vertical metering be cool for the 2-column vert. version ?

Two column vertical.. yes please.
Vertical metering... well, do we need metering at all? If we do, then vertical so as to consume the least space, yes.

Collapsible sections, and then I don't mean just entire "groups" but individual sends/receives (you know what I mean), I think that is more important than meters...

[Lokasenna]

I wouldn't mind metering so I can tell, at a glance, where the signal on a bus/sidechain is coming from.

For sends... I guess it'd be useful for setting the volume level, especially if you're doing pre/post-fader stuff so it won't match the track meter.

[airon]

I'll try to put it in to the design.

My first thought is to have the level meter underneath the actual fader, and have the post-send-fader levels be shown.

[Tallisman]

I love this thread. Each incarnation of it!

I'd be happy with any improvement, so long as it incorporates a means to change the send/recieve without changing the levels, channel assignments, midi settings, phase, etc.

.t