Posted
Hi,
This is just a suggestion post re: consistency in the Instruments display on different pages in Synfire.
Consider:
Arrange page
Snippets page
Tracks page
Notice the differences.
Two of these have titles, one does not.
Two of these offer the eye and zoom icons, one does not.
Comments:
Perhaps all of these should carry the title 'Instruments', as Instruments are what is listed, and as the governing page is already displayed in each case here:
but if not, then at least add the title 'Tracks' where no title is currently displayed. This would make it consistent with the others.
The eye and zoom icons are always useful, and it would be both consistent and helpful for them to be displayed in all cases.
None of this is critical, but I do think increased consistency would be a good thing here if there are no specific and significant contra-indication to doing that.
Fr., 09.01.2026 - 11:23 Permalink
You certainly have a point. Things should be as consistent as possible and seemingly minor things can make a big difference.
The Arrange vs. Snippet title (and their distinct colors) is there to indicate the type of content you are editing. Both types can be edited on the same page depending on what you selected last (e.g. a snippet at the top of the Structure page, or a container in the structure view). There is no such title on the Tracks page because there is no way to select snippets on that page. Don't know if showing the title is useful when it doesn't include any selection state information.
Same for the eye and zoom buttons. They only make sense where they can be used. Next to the full-size phrase editor they would have to be always grayed out. The layout may be visually consistent but a disabled tool that is never enabled is probably more confusing.
I'm not sure about the formatting of the track numbers yet, but the suggestion is very useful.
On a side note, we are sometimes slow to implement layout changes because doing so might require redoing a lot of existing tutorial videos from scratch. Therefore, we postpone some layout improvements until a general video overhaul is due anyway.