Feature Request: Better Zoom / Zoom Steps in the Piano Roll
I find the zoom in nanostudio 2 to be quite clumsy.
Or, not as good as easily reachable - esp. compared to most other Apps.
The different steps are just one note too short (not full octaves plus the next note), they to not snap to whole notes, and the zoom steps are strange too.
Why not a more usable zoom feature?
Start with one octave plus one note, for example C2 to C3, as is also the bar for keyboards.
And then add one octave for each zoom step.
And of course, snap to whole notes, not somewhere within notes.
Also, have some fix point, at best configurable: Either let the lowest note visible stay the lowest note and just expand the range of notes above, or do the same around the middle note that is visible, expanding on the top and I. the bottom.
If I could manage to describe, what I mean.
Comments
I find Zoom very useful. Zoom To Selection handles most of what you mention if I understand what you’re looking for.
No, I does not.
I don't even understand how you come to that idea.
And yes, I just tested to be sure.
And let me add, even if that could help, you are forced to constantly select and zoom to selection - this is not what would be good.
I find it very fluid. Apparently you don’t.
Most Piano Rolls have the same problem, but nanostudio 2 could easily be made better than most.
1) Snap to whole notes vertically
Like with a text editor, there is absolutely no reason to display half of a note. Realy.
2) Snap to whole bars / grid horizontally
Same reasoning, and make the whole zoom process much more usable.
In both cases, nobody needs the "ability" to see half of a note or a bar.
Just zoom in steps, notes or bars or the configured grid size.
Pixelwise was always a bad idea, but is used by most apps.
3) Make the zoom steps more senseful, adding or subtracting a whole octave, like with onscreen keyboards. It's the standard there, why not for the Piano Roll?
Bammm, perfect Piano Roll. With easily reproducable setup, not what we have now so often: Arbitrary, even random display.
The zoom steps of nanostudio are nearly there, but not finished.
I’m thinking about this and so far I like it.
Hm.. trying to understand what is issue here .. how you manage to zoom the way that you see just half of note ? That sounds really like bug to me, but i cannot reproduce it with any zoom mode...
If i don't have any notes selected, double tap on "zoom" icon toggles between "full view - maximal unzoom" and "zoom to all notes" ..
if i select some notes, double tap on "zoom" icon toggles between "full view" and "zoom selection" - no matter what i do , i see always properly all notes
Same way it works in sequencer tracks view - double tap on zoom without selected parts toggles beween "full view" and "zoom to all track parts" or with some parts selected between "full view" and "zoom to selected parts"
it's morning here probably just my brain isn't working (i didn't have my coffee yet
) but trying understand true base of your issue ..
What if I want to see a bit more than “all the notes”? I don’t always add notes between the ones I’ve already put in. But I don’t want a full “zoom out”. People generally write melodies within octave to two octave ranges. Having the ability to tap the zoom buttons and go in 1 octave and then 1 bar increments horizontally makes a lot of “musical” sense.
@drez quick pinch in / pinch out doesn't work for you ? That's most used zoom in / zoom out method i use
But now, looks like my coffee helped boot up my brain, i did not understand what is this about, now i got it
Am i right if if suppose you are using +/- icons on scrollbars ? I turned off scrollbars months ago i even forgot they are there at all 
vertical zoom on +/- icons conforms to active grid quantisation in piano roll. So for example if you use 1 BAR quantisation, +/- vertical scrollbar +/- icons step is exactly 1 BAR.
Regarding horizontal scrollbar icons - no idea... don't see any pattern there .. probably it always multiplies number of visible octaves by 2 ?
anyway if i would use scrollbars and their +/- buttons, then probably i would like @tja suggestions :-)
I think what @tja is referring to @dendy is akin to a 'zoom quantise'? For example having the ability to see one octave or two or three etc. And one, two or three etc bars horizontally, with scrolling up and down, left to right snapping to whatever the snap is currently set at. I can see that being useful for those who work solely in small loops, but not so helpful with those whose aim isn't just to produce quantised 'dance music'. Maybe it's an option that can be added at some point at a later date, but for now I think there are more pressing issues to deal with.
Yes, @tom_tm got it right.
Pinching around is exactly the base of the problem!
And the zoom buttons are not much better in their current incarnation.
Having the zoom steps with Pinching and with the zoom buttons "quantized" so that you always see a whole notes and a whole bar or grid-unit would fix this!
I thought to have this explained in detail above, but it seems the language barrier is greater that I thought.
And adding and removing exactly one octave (plus one note!) at each press of the zoom button would fix the other problem.
Just have a look at most onscreen keyboards I ever saw. You are adding and removing octaves there, and also whole keys only and not parts of keys.
The piano roll should work the same, of course!
nanostudio 2 has the best base for having the best possible piano roll between all iOS Apps, beside Xequence which also has the chance to get it right.
@tja Are you using the +/- buttons and not the zoom menu at the bottom of the screen!
The "Zoom" button affects both horizontal and vertical zooming, like with pinching.
The "+/-" zoom buttons only affect one axis.
I talk about the whole zooming with any and all buttons.
Not sure what you are referring to ;-)
I still think, I could not make clear what I mean.
I would like to see the best piano roll of all Apps in nanostudio 2.
This can easily be reached:
Just don't scroll and zoom pixelwise, but in whole notes, keys, bars and grid-units.
Make it snap!
For any and all methods of zooming, scrolling and pinching.
It's finally a grid, use it as grid.
And fix the zoom stages for the +/- buttons to add and remove whole octaves, which is what finally is needed. Like with good onscreen keyboards.
This would be incredible useful and an unbeatable feeling when using the app!
OK I get what you’re saying!
@anickt That's fine :-)
Implementation details:
The horizontal snap-to-whole notes should always be on, IMHO.
There is absolutely no reason so see half notes.
The vertical snap could offer options like snap-to-bar and snap-to-grid.
And of course the zooming / scrolling / pinching could either be done smoothly, pixelwise, and snap then.
Or it could directly move in the snap quantization, not pixelwise.
Just some thoughts.
I can see why you want this and how it would be useful for some (or in some situations) but it would drive me nuts.
We all work differently. Hurrah, we're snowflakes!
For context, I generally work with longish, non-quantized parts.
So yeah, that would not be a perfect piano roll for me. Snapping in either direction would mean when I want to zoom in to some arbitrary level on some arbitrary area of notes that the editor would fight with me. Imagine a section of short, quick non-quantized notes that overlaps with a long held note. I try to zoom to the level I want to tweak the short notes but the f@%$ing editor keeps zooming out to include the long note. HULK SMASH! Two finger pinch works exactly the way I want an editor to work—I zoom to the level I want and when I release my fingers it doesn't "decide for me".
Also, without some amount of 'margin' on the sides of the notes view, it is much harder to drag-select notes on the edges. If margin is to be maintained and there was snapping, the UI would regularly be zooming out further than desired.
Like I said, I think I get why you see it the other way though. Quantized zoom could be really useful for me when programming traditional drum machine style parts, etc. Maybe there could one day be an option for zoom snapping?
yeah, I would probably kill everybody around me including my son and wife if zoom (especisly pinch) would be quantised :-)) but as i know matt, he will never add such major change without ability to turn it off somewhere in options so i'm cool :-))
yeah there is plenty room in Settings > UI.. this is cool in Reaper - tons of UI settings so you can tweak whole app to fit your dreams.. ymaybe one day after iphone, audio tracks, ableton live session view, .... ehm
@Will @dendy
Yes, of course vertically optional!
But even you, @Will have no interest in seeing half of a node horizontally, or?
This is what pinching and even using the buttons currently allows for.
And we have several ways to zoom, pinching could even be excluded and included on the buttons. Or whatever :-)
Horizontal is actually the thing that would make me nuts. If NS didn't show partial notes that would create the situation where it changed the manual zoom I set (in or out) in order to keep from showing half a note. Crazy making.
Again, I see the utility in heavily quantized music and/or step based programming type situations. As a default though, I would super sad.
Ah, I misread this the first time. Since I never really use the buttons, this would work for me, personally.
Interesting idea for sure. Pinch would be free and as exact as you, the user, set it (as God intended). Buttons would be more "musically" quantized.
Still think partial notes would have to be permissible to allow for situations where there are both long and short notes in the same part (like four 1-bar chords held over a moving bassline). I think a stepped zoom would probably be best if it were based on the GRID value. If you only use 16th notes and set the grid to the same, no partial notes.