New Insert Instrument Dialogue needs work.

[John Vere]

@Starship Krupa  just brought this up in a similar topic,  but I thought a fresh thread requesting a few changes to the new Insert Instrument dialogue might be the best solution.  Hopefully we get the attention of developers here. This is were we do that , right? 

On making a tutorial about adding VST instruments to projects I explored the different ways you could insert a soft synth and found a total of 10. ?

The worst issue, to me, is there are now 2 very similar dialogue boxes as seen in my screen shots below. Most common methods of inserting still bring up the old dialogue and only the Add track and right clicking a blank space in the track pane open the new one. 

Then there's the issue with old one that people might have un checked the "ask every time" and forget it even existed.  The location of the button to push to get it back is in the synth rack and many people never have that open. Only a very experience user, or a newbie who actually reads the documentation would know it existed.  So A request for a control bar module that opens the old dialogue makes sense from that perspective. 
 

I'm guilty of having the box uncheck because in the past I always used one setting so it does speed thing up. 

Anyhow the proposal here is why why not add all the functions that are missing to the new dialog and scrap the old one? 

And possibly leave the "ask every time"  with the option  of when I insert using the Add track button only. 

It seems however the new dialogue forgets your preferences once you close a project. This is another reason people liked the old one. You could set it up and uncheck the box and then drag and drop was super fast. 

Seem there's very few options missing from the new dialogue and those must be a ten minute job to add by the developing team. But the retaining of settings function I'm not sure if that is as easy to accomplish. 

Edited November 18, 2021 by John Vere

[Starship Krupa]

Somehow it tickles me that to John, this dialog is the "new" one, when it's all I've seen in my 3 1/2 years of using the program. Of course, he's right, how else are you going to describe it?

Anyway, yes, clicking on the "+" sign in the Synth Rack, Insert/Soft Synth from the Main menu, double-click from the Browser, drag and drop from the Browser, and whatever the other ways it can be done (NOT, unfortunately in Piano Roll Track Pane), they all pop up the old verbose dialog.

I've wondered in the past why those advanced options....aren't under the Advanced Options section of the flyout.

[John Vere]

Yes it would seem easy to add a few more options. 
 

Im not exactly sure when the newer dialogue appeared in Cakewalk or Sonar. I ignored it’s existence up until I started making the tutorials.  I always had used the synth rack exclusively as well as split instrument track set to single synth output.The only 2 synths I use that have multiple outputs are AD2 and Xpand I use the built in mixer and effects.  So I rarely even used the old one. 
Now I’m liking using simple instrument tracks so the new dialogue works better because of the input/output options. 

But then it would be perfect if I could set those as my default and it was saved as a preference for all projects. Then I would always use drag and drop. 
I guess the other option is they could add the input/output option to the old dialogue and I could return to my old habit with 2 more things set up for me now. 

Edited November 19, 2021 by John Vere

[scook]

6 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Somehow it tickles me that to John, this dialog is the "new" one, when it's all I've seen in my 3 1/2 years of using the program. Of course, he's right, how else are you going to describe it?

I prefer the name used in the documentation Add Track menu Instrument tab.

Asking for the Instrument tab to have more of the Insert Soft Synth Options dialog options is not a new request. It was requested around the time of the addition of the menu to SONAR.

[John Vere]

100% agree that we should try to use the correct name for features on this forum. My go to is the help module. So my bad for using that label when I actually do know its correct title.

The help module is never wrong. I thought it was the other day when looking for the correct name for the right hand view in PVR. I was surprised that it called it the "Track Pane"?  But the info in the help module is different than what you see for the Track Pane  found in Track View. So I concluded there is a Track View Track Pane and a PVR Track Pane.  

Of note is the Add track dialogue also appears when you use the menu found by right clicking a blank space of the Track Pane. But the insert Audio Track found there doesn't. I have a feeling the Insert Instrument was added to this menu at the time they added the Add Track feature.  

[user 905133]

Ever since I first saw it, I have called it the insert instrument [or track] wizard in the forum.  That's the term I have seen used for decades to describe a dialog system like that which leads users in a step-by-step manner to make choices which culminate in creating a group of settings.

Quote

In computing, wizards were originally expert computer users (people) who could install software or help you with your installation. Later, they were software assistants (programs) to help with initial tasks of setting something up.

Quote

A help feature of a software package that automates complex tasks by asking the user a series of easy-to-answer questions.

From what I have seen some groups have misinterpreted the word "wizard" as an anti-religious reference and evidently the term has been shunned by some people in some places.  To me "wizard" fits "the new dialog." Apologies to anyone who might be offended, but I will continue to call it "the insert instrument wizard."   

Edited November 19, 2021 by User 905133
to change an erroneous comma to a period