F key follows tracks?

[jmh]

if I Shift-left click while in a group, I will default order 1-128 which could be a big time waster

essentially my track/ channel order is saved in the edl

a custom track/ channel order would be helpful

I was watching a dvd the other night, and I realized I had already written a utility that manipulated edls, and that modifying it to copy track order would be trivial - and it was done before the movie was over.
merge_track_order.exe

It takes 3 arguments (or -h):
merge_track_order.exe input.edl order.edl output.edl



It works here (and probably everywhere), but for safety's sake, make sure output.edl isn't the name of an existing edl.
The input file's track-order data is replaced with the track-order data from order.edl

I will probably do an autohotkey to call it from while saw is running against undo files, but I'm having some issues while ss is running as administrator. I'll play around with that eventually - but if someone gets to it first in autoit, have at it...

Here is the size (18432) & shasum:

bash-3.2# ls -l merge_track_order.exe
-rw-r--r--@ 1 ramona staff 18432 Feb 12 12:59 merge_track_order.exe
bash-3.2# shasum merge_track_order.exe
6a03242e28320bdcf64427fb663c2f30633c1079 merge_track_order.exe

[Dave Labrecque]

So what does this thing do? I'm not following. I mean I'm following. But I don't follow.

[jmh]

So what does this thing do? I'm not following. I mean I'm following. But I don't follow.

If you are juggling around your tracks, you might do a 'save a copy' (called order.edl) before you start. When you are done, you would run merge_track_order. It will restore the original track order stored in order.edl.

If you were doing a movie, you might have directory of different themovie/orders/sceneX.edl with the dialogs of different actors associated with each different scene in order of importance. I am aware that doing that with a command line utility is a bit cumbersome - but the intent is to have a helper script enable you to change orders on the fly.

BTW, the actual track-order data is tiny, so the program could be modified to store only that - but for my needs, and the fact that an edl's worth of storage is a penny, it is fine the way it is.

[Dave Labrecque]

Nice. And I suppose you could take it a step further to create multiple track orders if you wanted.

I don't believe this is something that could be done with an analog console and multitrack tape machine.

[jmh]

After saying it was fine as it was, I added the ability to export the track order only.

..\songEDLdirectory\TrackOrders\F1.sto

The autohotkey helper script creates the TrackOrders sub-directory in a project's edl directory, so the `F1, `F2... will be individualized for each project (unless you have all your edls in the same directory).

The new merge_track_order.exe will read edl or sto files for track order. A sto file is just a text file that you can edit by hand (if you choose). The format is:

SAWSTUDIO_TRACK_ORDER_FILE
#
R_4
C_1 # pound initiates a comment
I_2
O_6

...the tracks will reorder Return-4, Control, Input-2, Output-6, Input-1, Input-3, Input-4... and continue with the natural sort order.

I'm playing with autohotkey V2 to save or recall the trackorders as we speak. One of the challenges is to find available hot-key combos that don't interfere with Studio's. It is looking like backtick + Fkey. I'm thinking of {Escape} + Fkey to store - but I haven't got there to see what challenges emerge.

Bob has used every trick to make saw own the cpu it is running on, and it's windows stick tenaciously to the top. This presents several obstacles to autohotkey (and someone writing a script), so while the script will work well, it is not perfect. So programmer types should consider this an invitation to improve it.

An example of this is the transport must be stopped when calling changing track-order (which is done by making [2], then editing, then backing into an undo) - or a crash could result. AutoHot Key could look for changes in digits of the transport position, so that commands are ignored during playback. For now, it will mean backup your edls before you use these tools.

A prerequisite is autohotkey v2.0

Standby...

[Dave Labrecque]

My head hurts.

But keep up the good work!

[jmh]

Richswit, I added a feature to control2tempo that will do what you want. Read the pdf on that thread.

John