Feature Request: Text search box inside the Markers window

[Fran Kinsey]

Every day I wish I could search for text inside the Markers window. I record albums all in one project, same as I record multitrack concerts all in one project. Every project ends up with  a ton of Markers, 50, 100, more (see attached screen cap).  Song names, take numbers, best takes, best take lane solos, eff-ups, tempo wobbles, fixit notes, whole verse replacement start and stop, locations of solos, chorii etc . . . 

But there is no way to search. And even worse, every time you open and close the Markers dialog it loses the place you were working so you have to start at the top and scroll and scroll until you find the place you are. All day long. 

Even worse, during a tracking session it takes so long to locate any Marker, like a solo, that the band starts asking what's wrong and even speculating that I forgot to record it. It's embarrassing, every tracking or dubbing session. 

The attached image shows an album in-progress with well over 100 markers and the kind on instructions I send myself.  I've learned to tag the best takes with *** as a visual aid while scrolling and scrolling.  I add a whole bunch of empty Markers to make a glaringly large whitespace as a visual aid while scrolling to locate the session date (this project has 3).

BUT as always, Cakewalk is incredible and ~~~RAAAWKS~~~  !!!

[Jim Fogle]

@Fran Kinsey, I'm not that familiar with your extensive use of text inside the marker window so please excuse my ignorance on the subject in advance.

So you are wanting Ctrl+F to be active when the Marker window is the active window?  If that is not what you want or it can not be implemented how about an alternative?

It appears to me that you use the the Marker window almost as a project spreadsheet.  So, here's my thought:

At the top of the Marker window there are icons for "+" add a marker, "-" delete a marker,  "Change Marker Properties" and "Lock or Unlock a Marker".    What if additional icons were added at the top that enabled the user to: (1) print the Marker window content as a text file, (2) export the content as a text file or (3) export the content as a spreadsheet (*.XLS)?

[murat k.]

Also having an option to color them, filtering the markers view by color and navigating between the same marker color shortcuts will be useful.

I mean we can separate the markers by color used for different purposes. They can be used for notes (just like the OP), timing, pitching, chords etc. 

Filtering the view of  the markers by color will be also useful if the markers seems so much and complicated in the Timeline and the Markers View.

And if there is a shortcut like "Next/Previous Marker with the same color", navigating between the markers which have same purpose will be possible. It will act like the same as "Next/Previous Marker" shortcut at first use to jump a marker, and if it's already at a marker shortcut will jump to the next marker which has the same color. And Next/Previous marker commands will only work for visible Markers in the view at this way.

These ideas are for the case of wanting to be developed by preserving the existing state of markers in the Cakewalk instead of making Marker Tracks like Cubase have.

[Starship Krupa]

I don't use the Marker List view myself, but seeing it with such a long list of markers does make me wonder why we can't click on "Name" to at least have them sorted by name.

And reading the OP, I'm kinda surprised that a search feature doesn't already exist, which is a good sign that it probably should (see recent addition of "Replace FX" to FX bin commands).

If I were using Marker List view myself and regularly had that many markers, I'd have to wear a rubber band on my left wrist to snap every time I instinctively reached for Ctrl-F.

[Jim Fogle]

On 11/26/2022 at 7:10 AM, murat k. said:

Also having an option to color them, filtering the markers view by color and navigating between the same marker color shortcuts will be useful.

I mean we can separate the markers by color used for different purposes. They can be used for notes (just like the OP), timing, pitching, chords etc. 

Filtering the view of  the markers by color will be also useful if the markers seems so much and complicated in the Timeline and the Markers View.

And if there is a shortcut like "Next/Previous Marker with the same color", navigating between the markers which have same purpose will be possible. It will act like the same as "Next/Previous Marker" shortcut at first use to jump a marker, and if it's already at a marker shortcut will jump to the next marker which has the same color. And Next/Previous marker commands will only work for visible Markers in the view at this way.

These ideas are for the case of wanting to be developed by preserving the existing state of markers in the Cakewalk instead of making Marker Tracks like Cubase have.

@murat k., Good ideas.  I'd love to see this in a thread by itself.  In my mind, then there would be a better chance for the developers to see your ideas.

[Starship Krupa]

On 11/25/2022 at 11:13 AM, Jim Fogle said:

What if additional icons were added at the top that enabled the user to: (1) print the Marker window content as a text file, (2) export the content as a text file or (3) export the content as a spreadsheet (*.XLS)?

I suspect that @Fran Kinsey wants to be able to find markers so that they can then click on them and navigate to them. Having a list in a file external to Cakewalk might e useful for other things, but wouldn't help with that.