Step by step undo in Fade Editor

[DJS]

Can the undo in fade editor remember and cycle back through the history of ALL changes instead of undoing to the state when the fade editor was first activated. Often I audition and make a lot of changes in the fade editor window, go to undo the last change and it reverts to the state when the fade editor was first opened, many edits ago. One loses all those changes.

[fl]

The Undo Fade Change button, just to the right of the "Thumbs Down" button, allows me to step backwards through successive changes to the fade shape changes and positions - is this not what you want?

Yes, you do lose those changes once they are undone - there's no "Redo" button, but with the six memory locations available, experiments can be saved and compared.

[phaseboy]

There is a preference for this in the editing settings - "enable undo for every fade editor change" or something like that. It works as Frank says if you have this enabled.

Regards,

Mark

[DJS]

Thanks Mark and Frank, I have that set but it still doesn't seem to remember all the changes and undo them in order.

[fl]

Hmm, it works for me... There may be an upper limit to the total number of "undos", but in common use, I've always been able to step backwards in the proper order. It's possible that the use of the six memories, jumping from one saved condition to another, will disrupt the Undo chain, but I've never really investigated this closely.

Of course the big drawback to the use of the memories is that there is no "Save the current state right now because I'm about to do something incredibly stupid, and will realize it when it's too late" function. Anticipation of this sort has to be applied manually by the operator.

Are you finding that "Undoing" leaves out certain steps? Are they of a particular nature (i.e. button clicks, slider positioning, preset recall...)?

[DJS]

Are you finding that "Undoing" leaves out certain steps? Are they of a particular nature (i.e. button clicks, slider positioning, preset recall...)?

No, usually its just the last one or two or three steps I want to reverse, because they are audible or whatever, and when I ctrl Z, it goes back to the setting when the fade editor first opened on that edit.

[fl]

when I ctrl Z, it goes back to the setting when the fade editor first opened on that edit.

Ah, that's it.
Ctrl+Z invokes the "Restore Fade" function, whereas what you want is to "Undo Fade Change". You can either click on the button in the Fade Editor with the little curved arrow (top left), or create a Keyboard shortcut of your own. Shift+Ctrl-Z is already taken, but Alt+Z or Ctrl+Alt+Z should be available (in a default Pyramix installation). Just open the Settings Menu > Keyboard Shortcut Editor, and select the "Fade Editor tab, highlight "Undo Fade Change" from the list on the left, then enter your preferred key combo in the field on the right where it says, "Press New Shortcut Key", then Enter and your new shortcut should be available to you for all projects.

As mentioned earlier, before doing any of this, you have to enable: Settings Menu > All Settings > Application > Editing > "Enable Undo for Every Fade Editor Change" (last checkbox under "Fade Editor", 3/4 of the way down on the right), otherwise the button will just "Restore Fade" to its original condition.

Just FYI, in a couple of other threads - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10489&hilit=crossfade#p33177 - and - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10152&hilit=keyboard#p31886 - I detailed some other keyboard shortcuts that I've found to be useful when editing.

[DJS]

Many thanks Frank. As ctrl-Z is a Windows standard for undo, I will replace and use this keyboard shortcut for this purpose. Sheesh.

[DJS]

Ctrl+Z invokes the "Restore Fade" function.

I wonder why this is even required. Just close the fade editor without saving or thumbs up does this, no? Or pressing escape? I will definitely remap the incremental undo to ctrl-Z.

[fl]

I agree that having Ctrl+Z perform the same action as the "Thumbs Down" icon, with its "Restore Fade" is not particularly intuitive. As for "Saving" or hitting Escape, I don't believe either are effective in the Fade Editor, or at least they won't do what you are hoping, since every change you make in the Fade Editor is immediately applied in the main Timeline as you do it - you don't "save" your edit - it's already done.

I think you'll find that you can't get what you're after by re-mapping Ctrl+Z so that it no longer invokes the Edit Menu > Undo command, then re-assigning it to the Fade Editor > Undo Fade Change since by doing that, you'll lose the "Undo" key command everywhere else. I found that leaving Ctrl+Z associated with Edit Menu > Undo, and then adding the same key combo for the Fade Editor > Undo Fade Change, does not give the desired result - the Restore Fade command will take precedence, and you're back where you started. You have to pick another (hopefully unused) key combination, or just click on the curved arrow button with the mouse.

[DJS]

Many thanks Frank, you beat me to it. Was going to try all this today.

I wish Merging and all software devs would stick to the basic Windows UI standards as much as possible.