Marquee track selection?

[AdamWathan]

Is there any way to make a marquee selection across several tracks to make a multiple track selection, the same way you can draw a marquee to select items? It would be really handy if in the arrange window, I could right click and marquee select the tracks themselves if I want to drag and drop them into another track as a folder! Currently I have to click one track, and shift+click the last track in the selection, then drag those tracks into another track.

Alternatively, is there a way to force the track selection to follow the item selection? So automatically, the only tracks that are selected are tracks with selected items? I know Pro Tools has an option for this that I usually leave on. This way I could marquee select a bunch of items and the corresponding tracks would all be selected as well.

[gofer]

Alas, no. Does PT do that? I always wondered why that's not possible in any DAW i know. Vote here for track select per marquee in the tcp and mcp, please: http://forum.cockos.com/project.php?issueid=628

Otherwise, the closest I can find is SWS: Select only track(s) with selected items. Is an extra step after the fact and I'd like to select tracks without items as well. Though, an automatic selection of all tracks with any marquee-selected items could be useful (already works for selection by click when the preference is set). Worth a FR of it's own I think.

[musicbynumbers]

if you select the first top left item and then shift click the lowest bottom right item it selects all inbetween including the tracks but I guess that's no different than doing the same but just on the tracks

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by gofer

Alas, no. Does PT do that? I always wondered why that's not possible in any DAW i know.

It's a preference setting in many daws, "Track Selection Follows Event Selection" in Cubendo , that works as the op describes. It also follows the range selection even if there are no events under the selection. It works the same way in S1 and I assume PT.

So in that case you just do it in the arrange space, same thing. Video

[gofer]

Ah, I see.

I meant especially marqueeing in the track header area (tcp) or the mixer window (mcp), as I still often find me doing it inadvertently, no matter if it's Reaper, Logic, Sonar, Reason, Vegas, or any track based app (that I know).
It just seems to be so very obvious but none I know seems to offer it. Sonar can do something like it, has to do with those track number fields. But not simply marquee as usual. (ok, one has to bend oneself quite a bit to say Reaper's rightclick marquee is usual, but you get the picture.)

The effective difference would be that it wouldn't change my item selection, but I'm more about the intuitiveness of the idea: "There's several things in a row I want selected -> I drag a marquee over them."

[AdamWathan]

Logic 9 has marquee track selection!

[Lawrence]

Ok, I see what you mean Gofer. Yeah, that would be hard to do since the mouse is already being used for left click selection/drag and right click menus usually over the TCP's. It would have to use a modifier which kinda defeats the purpose... to not use a modifier.

I suppose one could create a vertical TCP space for that though.

To the other thing, if I'm selecting multiple tracks to move or group whatever I'm not really concerned about losing any event selections.

Originally Posted by AdamWathan

Logic 9 has marquee track selection!

How does that work there? I sold my copy of L9.

[gofer]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

´...that would be hard to do since the mouse is already being used for left click selection/drag and right click menus usually over the TCP's. It would have to use a modifier which kinda defeats the purpose... to not use a modifier.

Why? In the arrange area we got rightclick menus as well and it doesn't conflict with rightclick marquee. There is a difference between click-and-drag and just click and all of Reaper's context stuff opens on release if you didn't drag the mouse. Also, the purpose is not just to avoid a modifier, but to avoid the second click. Not even that, to be honest. In fact, the purpose is just to make selection behavior consistent in different areas of the app.

Ah, Logic 9 does it? Nice to hear that a developer had this idea as well and found it good enough to implement .

I am not fighting for this, as there are possibilities to select those tracks, but still I am puzzled that it is not "just there". No biggie to me. It is just what I would intuitively expect to happen if it was the first time I use a track based app thingie.

[musicbynumbers]

There's no difference in the end result though of instead of marquee"ing" the items to make the tracks get selected (which of now it doesn't) to clicking the top left item, going to the bottom right item and shift clicking it.

It selects all the items inbetween both horizontally and vertically (as if it was a marquee) and also selects all tracks too.

The only difference I guess is the shift key.

As for an actual marquee select in the track and mcp area, this could work in a very similar way to how you can select one mute button, keep your button pressed and select the mute a few tracks down to mute all those tracks.

We could have the same behaviour say on the track number, click on say track one's number, keep mouse pressed, go down to track 10's number and release, this could select all track's in between

[jas]

Please also allow this form of marquee track selection affect Ripple Editng:

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=53427

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by gofer

Why? In the arrange area we got rightclick menus as well and it doesn't conflict with rightclick marquee. There is a difference between click-and-drag and just click and all of Reaper's context stuff opens on release if you didn't drag the mouse.

Very good point Gofer. In Cubase those right-click menus trigger on mouse_down, which kinda led me there. You're right, in Reaper they trigger on mouse_up.

Thanks man.

Just to be clear... in Cubase, when you call a right click menu with a mouse_down action (or to call a toolbar) you never have to let the right button go, you just move to the menu item and trigger it on release of the right button. It's a method that I'd used so long it just seems normal. Although most people right click then use the left button to select the item, you don't have to do that... all of those things are really one right mouse-button click.

[AdamWathan]

Yeah like gofer said, there is really no reason to make this complicated at all. It would behave exactly like in the arrange window, right click would bring up a context menu on release if you didn't drag, and if you did drag it would draw a marquee to select the tracks. Like mentioned, I actually find myself trying to do this all the time in Reaper already! Would be a cool feature for sure.

Just for fun here's a video displaying how it works in Logic 9. It only works in the Mixer window though. In Reaper, having it work for TCP and MCP would be great as I find myself trying to use it on the TCP much more than I do in the mixer. Hell, in Reaper I rarely find myself opening the mixer at all!

http://www.adamwathan.com/reaper/marqueetrack.mov