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IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0006669ardourfeaturespublic2018-02-26 22:14
Reporternaught101 Assigned To 
PrioritynormalSeverityminorReproducibilityhave not tried
Status newResolutionopen 
Product Version4.4 
Summary0006669: Open Ardrour directly without creating a session (use temporary directory)
DescriptionWhen you open Ardour, if you want to start a new project, you *have* to create a new session (e.g. give it a name, and a folder). This is problematic for two reasons:

1. For new users, it's another step before they get to start doing anything
2. Sometimes I just want to try something out, and don't want to save it (nor have to think of a name for it).
2.1. If I don't want to save it after, my file system is left full of old junk ardour projects, that I have to manually delete. If I forget to do that immediately, then when I come back, I have to open the session to make sure that it's not important.

It would be really nice if I could just open ardour straight in to the session view. I guess this would ideally create a new project in a temporary directory (/tmp/ on POSIX), and when the project is first saved, this folder would be moved to the save location. This would save a lot of un-fun upfront activity on first booting ardour.
TagsNo tags attached.

Activities

chaot

2015-11-08 09:28

reporter   ~0017593

Generally, I think this is a good idea as I got the same problem with a lot of useless sessions floating around.

I think the best way in the UI to implement that is to:
* create a command line option for that
* create some checkbox (or something similar) in the 'Session Setup' dialog where you can choose to create a temporary session (or whatever the name should be)

I do *not* think that this should be the default way to create a session and I also don't whink that it would really faciliate things for newbies. Furthemore, there would have to be some logic that warns if you close the temporary session without saving it to a non-temporary directory etc.

x42

2015-11-08 23:21

administrator   ~0017594

This will teach users bad habits and open more ways to shoot oneself into the foot. One might loose something important by accident. esp new users. Disk-space is cheap and one must learn early on to organize sessions properly.

just my 2cents

x42

2015-11-08 23:23

administrator   ~0017595

PS. you can add /tmp as shortcut to the dropdown (when creating new sessions) it's one extra click (+ give the session some name).

naught101

2015-11-09 00:51

reporter   ~0017596

The junk projects problem could be solved differently by offering a "permanently delete project" menu item somewhere. Likewise, temporary, poorly named projects could benefit from a "rename/move project" menu entry.

I think an "are you sure you want to close this unsaved project? <Yes, delete everything permanently> <Save somewhere then close> <Cancel (leave open)>" style dialogue would prevent 99% of potential unwanted data loss. I don't think it's Ardour's job to prevent users from shooting themselves in the foot any more than any other program, and this pattern (open and edit immediately, optionally save later) is extremely common across nearly every type of software, so people will expect it.

I guess the 2 possible accidental data loss avenues are 1) the user clicks "delete" when they meant to click "save". That is a user problem, and Ardour can ignore it. and 2) Crash before save. I think that that is solved by actually saving the project in a temporary directory, in exactly the same way that a normal project is saved.

Disk space is cheap, but time isn't, and cleaning up many junk projects can become quite time consuming.

The /tmp/ solution at the moment doesn't work that well, because there's no easy way to move/rename a project.

chaot

2015-11-09 08:21

reporter   ~0017597

There is a rename and a move (save as) option: Session -> Rename.../Save As...

So creating a session in /tmp/ indeed works nicely.

naught101

2015-11-09 11:01

reporter   ~0017599

True, sorry, missed the rename thing. It'd be better if it was a rename/move thing though - Save As creates a copy.

unfa

2018-02-26 22:14

reporter   ~0020196

I was thinking of this idea today, I'm glad I found this, before I filed the same issue myself.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2015-11-07 03:06 naught101 New Issue
2015-11-08 09:28 chaot Note Added: 0017593
2015-11-08 23:21 x42 Note Added: 0017594
2015-11-08 23:23 x42 Note Added: 0017595
2015-11-09 00:51 naught101 Note Added: 0017596
2015-11-09 08:21 chaot Note Added: 0017597
2015-11-09 11:01 naught101 Note Added: 0017599
2018-02-26 22:14 unfa Note Added: 0020196