How can I set a default workspace?

[Bronxio]

Hi! I have to set my workspace always when I open Cakewalk and start a new project. This is what I've to do:

• Contract/hide left panel (inspector: compressor, eq, etc.)
• Contract/hide right panel (browser -Media/plugins/notes- and help modules)
• Set track control from "custom" to "all" (to show everything for each track: volume, pan, gain, I/O, stereo/mono, etc.)
• Trim a bit track controls to the right (so I see more track controls and less track rails for the clips)
• Show the millisecond ruler (along with M:B:T, which appears by default)

If anyone can tell me at least how to avoid some of those points each time, it will be highly appreciated 🙏

[David Baay]

Regarding "Apply Workspace on Project Load", you may not want to enable that. Here's why:

I've just recently started using Workspaces after many years of not feeling they were useful to me because too many of my projects have specific layouts that I don't want to have overridden by a generic Workspace. When I came to understand (thanks to @Starship Krupa) that you don't have to have a Workspace applied automatically, that was the key to making them work for me.

With 'Apply...'  disabled, you can decide after opening a project whether you want to apply your preferred Workspace by reselecting it from the picklist. If you want the project to take on the layout permanently, just resave it, and it will open with that layout next time even when the Workspace is not applied. Then, if you do some project-specific tweaking of the layout later and re-save it, it will re-load with those tweaks preserved next time.

For new projects, just save a project template that has that Workspace applied.

 

[mark skinner]

The dropdown arrow on your workspace module will show the option to create a new workspace or save a workspace. Be sure "load workspace at project start" is also checked.

[Starship Krupa]

10 hours ago, Bronxio said:

If anyone can tell me at least how to avoid some of those points each time, it will be highly appreciated

As @David Baay said, he and I recently spent some time exploring exactly how Workspaces, um, work. He asked a similar question to yours in a different forum. I wanted to help out and I wanted to sort some of his questions for myself. When I work on a project, I can get crazy with opening windows and moving them to my second monitor and so on, and sometimes I want a way to snap back to my default layout. This is what we learned:

It's a feature with two basic uses. One of the uses is to remove UI elements that the user may find distracting. I never use that, because I know how to just close things that I don't need to see. That feature is the box on the left when you open the Manage Workspaces dialog. Some must find it useful because the 6.5 update to Studio One introduced a similar feature, obviously inspired by Cakewalk.

The other part of the feature, the one that I find useful, lets you apply Control Bar Layout, Window Layout, Track Control Manager settings, Keyboard shortcut settings, and Display options that are set in Preferences.

Some things to understand about this feature is that most of the the "Load From Workspace" settings, are also loaded from projects (and templates). So the easiest way to get where you want to go would be just to make a template (or templates) with all of the settings you listed and open that template when you start a new project.

The Workspaces feature allows you to save these settings, and apply them to projects that you've already opened. So, for instance, you've been working on a project and you've made a bunch of changes to the window layout, you've got the Multidock open to show Step Sequencer, etc. and you want to switch to a layout where you're using Console View for mixing. That's when you load a Workspace.

And David's correct when he says that it's best not to set Apply Workspace on Project Load unless you want to reset all those things every time you open a project or template. That's the part of Workspaces that makes them scary. You've set up a project just how you want it, you save it, and then when you open it, your workspace gets applied and you lose all of your options.

To sum it up, you don't need to use the Workspaces feature to do what you want to do. Just make some templates with those settings the way you want them and load them when you start a new project and you'll be fine. The stock templates will reset the  track controls and window layout, which is what you're struggling with, so either modify them or create your own.

One of the slickest features of NuSonar is the ability to resize Console strips, and that also gets saved with projects and window layouts.

Footnotes:

1. if you want to save project-specific window layouts once you get rolling with a project, maybe get cozy with Screensets. While David and I were shaking out Workspaces, I got to know them because I thought they might apply to his situation. I understand how they work, but haven't made them part of my workflow.

2. "None" is actually a workspace that gets saved when you load a named workspace. It's your safety net. If you get into trouble when applying a Workspace, go back to None and it will put your settings back to whatever they were before you applied the workspace. It's also a good idea to save your preferred options as a "Bronxio's" workspace so that if you forget that you have "Apply Workspace on Project Load" checked, you can revert back to it more easily.

Good luck and let us know once you have a handle on it.

Edited December 4 by Starship Krupa