Help on practicing / piano roll not playing back unless clicked?

What do you want to do with HN2, because there is no piano roll in HN2 ;)

The OP is talking about the keyboard panel, I assume.

MIDI Through needs to be enabled (Playback menu) and you need to select a target instrument by selecting an instrument in a song, or a global instrument in your MIDI setup first. Then all external input is sent to that instrument.

To start a new song, you do File >> New >> Song.

There are many ways to use HN2 for practicing:

• Make a keyboard panel big and set it to show the scale notes.
• Open multiple panels, showing chords, scales, etc.
• Open the Catalog and double-click on any scale to see all its chords on a palette.

I would expect first chord to be: C E G

and 2nd chord to simply be: D F A

instead HN is making the 2nd chord look something like D F  -1octA

Yes can be confusing..do you know what a chord inversion is ?

For example Cmajor has for triads...

I - C

II- Dm

iii- Em

iv- F

V- G

vi- Am

vii -Bdim

I know for the Cmaj scale the triads ..but that's all

You can make options for the pallette that it shows only chords who belong to that key

Open examples to see demo pallettes

I agree with you that when you see the default palette that it is impossible to see the chords belonging to a scale and with all the options it is difficult to get what you want..so study some demo palette examples to find the pallette where you are looking for: showing only chords for a given scale.

Cognitone is not realizing that there are basic users.. like you and me
A common problem that i do see more..so the ideal program goes from simple to deep ..and simple is easy to get for a starter in music in the program.

I hope that HN2 comes too with a black gui  and some more ..and i like very much all the functionality what Cognitone has made in HN2..it is only the userfriendlyness what can be better
The ideal program has a simple start for basic things like a palette with the chords what belonging to that key and i as  user  can extent this

HN2 inverts the chord to best match the desired sound (timbre, typical pitch) of the instrument. Go to the global instruments in Audio & MIDI Setup to change the desired playing ranges.

HN2 and Synfire are designed to compose music "ready to use", rather than for musical education. Unfortunately this confuses a lot of users that work in Chords-Only mode (and LE owners).

You can hold the ALT key while surfing the palette. This will force the root position for each chord (in "Chords-Only" mode). You can also use the 1,2,3,4 keys to select a particular inversion.

HN2 and Synfire are designed to compose music "ready to use", rather than for musical education. Unfortunately this confuses a lot of users that work in Chords-Only mode (and LE owners).

Thanks

The ideal program is to use for musical education and practical composing in theory.
It is easy to write for me as user that the musicaleducation parts must be improved, but is it possible right now? 
Is it not possible to get a sort of musical education and composing mode in HN2 ?
It is a really very strong selling point to have also a educational mode in HN2. 

The coloring of the palette is complicated because you must know what relations between chords can exist
The starter begins with the basic relation like the functional.. so you must first get clear what relations in chordprogressions
you are after for.
The ideal situation is from a basic structure chordprogression to a advanced chord progression
Somehow it is handy to have a flow diagram for working with progressions
Note : a black gui like in SFP for HN2 should improve the circle of fifth coloring

The most important feature of HN2 is that you can construct a chord progression and HN2 makes the right note postions for the instruments .. result it sounds musical! (constraint)

The VOICE LEADING is done automatically by the sophisticated software of HN2 by using the rules for voice leading
So don't you worry about the chords and concentrate yourself on your music.
If you use chord inversions in a progression than you can get a better voice leading ..a smoother voice leading
So i think you can work with chords in root position or mixed with inversions

Examples

In the Key of C , the I-IV-V chords are C Major , F Major and G Major  in the rootpositions

Than in inversions

And last in classical piece
Note:

As you can see in this abbreviated orchestral score , the strings play the chords while the bass provides the root note of each chord. The bass occasionally plays a non-root note (bars 2 and 4 - beat 2) just to keep the bass line moving while the oboe plays a simple melody over the chord progression.

We've drawn most of the melody notes from the chord progression itself. The other melody notes are merely non-chord tones connecting these chord notes.

This same chord progression could have just as easily provided the background for either a slower or faster piece of music. Likewise, the melody could move at a much slower or faster pace. We also could orchestrate this musical passage quite differently. As with all the other chord progressions found throughout this chapter, your choices of styles and orchestration are limitless

- Use HN to explore a motif --> You can import some phrases (motifs made by yourself) and cut and paste existing phrase in HN2 itself.
There is no motif generator for a measure(as example) .. or if do you mean by exploring a motif by extending this in a songsection ? 

- To help to find a chordprogression--> from a melody/bassline ..or existing piece of music with the right chordprogression?..that is possible with the harmonizer find  chords for the melody and bass..also when you have a Basis(accompaniment)
To find the right chordprogession can be done by "continuing" for the palette..HN2 comes up with the best progression for voice leading.
Well that is my idea of working with HN2..hopefully will HN2 be updatedin the near future with some more composingfreedom features and VSti support.

Note: My earlier post with the music examples is a interesting exercise to do with the basic triads and with the inversions
If you import this as a midi ..HN2 must come up(show) with triad inversions as progression.
There are some advanced triads to find elsewhere in music books , what you can always use for composing and store these as templates too.
The chord templates in HN2 seems to be all root chord progressions, but there exist some more refined chordprogression what are using inversion for a better voiceleading ( see example of classical piece)

I do have a serie of 13 advanced chordprogression for composing and bring them in HN2 as a template

Basically how does one correctly determine when a note is "too far out" of the standard harmonized range?

The playing range of your instrument does. Edit that range and you will get different inversions.

What I'd like to know is, why is Harmony Navigator, more technically correct, by inverting the root note of every chord?

Inversions are selected to achieve a desired sound (timbre), which is set by the Typical Pitch of the playing ranges. In most cases, HN2 considers all inversions of a chord the same chord (narrow voicing). Inversions get more important when the pitch distance between voices increases (wide voicing). This is the case with 4-part counterpoint, which HN does not (yet) render.

Secondly, I noticed with the C major scale in HN, if I  Alt+Click C thru G, I get the non-inverted chords. However, if I alt+click the remaining Am and Bdim, I can only get the inverted chords to play. Why is this? 

The root position of Am and Bdim would be pitched too far away from the Typical Pitch, or even violate the playing range of the instrument. That's why they get inverted. You will not see this effect when you increase the iverall playing range, probably.