Just another little feature added to Ardour 3

Trying to solve a bug with importing audio, I spent the last couple of days adding a new feature to Ardour 3 that many people have been asked about for quite some time. Historically, Ardour has always stored the names of the audio files in one of two ways. One would indicate that the file lived inside the session, and the other indicated that it lived outside, somewhere else in your computer’s filesystem. This meant that if you ever moved the location of the external files, Ardour wouldn’t be able to find them at startup, and if you wanted the session to work, you’d need to hand edit the session file.

Well, now this is no longer true. Ardour will use a search path for all the files (audio & MIDI) that it needs for the session, and if it can’t find them as it loads the session, it will ask you where to look for them. You can also edit the search path from the session properties dialog.

Just another reason for us to hurry up with the first alpha release of Ardour3, coming soon.

Nice feature!
I’m always happy to see any news. And I realy look forward to Ard3 alpha.

This sounds very like the feature in Adobe Illustrator, where linked files are first sought in the registered path, then in the same path the document resides. And when still not found, the user is presented with a dialog asking to Replace, Relocate, or Ignore the linked file, or to Cancel the whole opening operation.

Very intuitive feature!

Great news! I will definitely be donating some more when Ardour 3 comes out!

Sounds like a nice feature, and like jegelie2 said the way Adobe/Aldus use to handle larger files.
I have not looked right now at the new features, but like you described it, there is one small “feature” missing.

The Adobe/Aldus software offers an option to copy the external file directly into the session.
It would be really nice to have an option on import which copies the file to the session directory before importing.
A check box called something like “copy to session folder” would be nice to have.
If the user ticks this on importing, a session movement to a different workstation is easy possible.

Great to see process on the A3 branch! I’m really looking forward to a release of A3.

Kind regards,
Harald

@hg87: ardour has had this option for a very very very long time.

maybe Spotlight on a mac or Beagle on LInux to suggest locations?

in general, we try to stay away from that level of desktop integration. the user can fire up spotlight or beagle very easily. not a terrible idea, though.

easy is relative. lets say I transferred a session from the local disk to an external drive. Now, on my mac, it’s 3 directories deep to get to my documents folder, then another 2 or 3 levels into the project folder, depending on how organized by files are.

from root, it’s 3 levels deep to get into the audio folder on my external drive, so I have to traverse 7-10 directory levels in order to reattach my session files. Smart users have their common dirs as sidebar favorites, but what about the guy who just got a new drive, or upgraded his DAW machine? Generally, I prefer one click over 15-20 clicks every time.

i think you misread what i wrote: the user can fire up spotlight or beagle very easily … I did not say the user can find the files themselves very easily. but also, you’re making a common user value judgement of assigning high value to assisting the user with a very rare operation even though doing though is complex, prone to error and often requires some heuristics that are hard to get right. with limited resources (as ardour development definitely suffers from), its much better for us to focus the time and mental bandwidth we have on common cases and/or issues that can be solved without running into lots of subtle user interaction issues.

I just want to say that Ardour3 is really getting there. I’ve been downloading the code and compiling and fooling around with it, to my surprise, after compiling I check SVN again, maybe 30 minutes after compiling, and new changes are reflected in repository (and I mean like 10-20 files), mostly carlh is the one who has been really working a lot these days, also the other devs, but carl surprises me (I think he’s the one who is most anxious of us for the new version to come out!).

MIDI is looking and working great!
The new interface is really nice
The tracks have a better layout
I love the grouping for tracks and busses (with their respective tabs and edit modes)

Everything is just amazing!

I really don’t know how to thank you so much to all of you devs, your work is amazing.

I have to save up some $$$ and keep sending you some donations (I feel so embarrassed) :frowning:

Anyway, thank you for one of the best applications out there…

Joe

can’t wait for Ardour 3 to hit the public! looking forward and keep up the great work!
:slight_smile:
KIM