Support multiple rows for the mixer panel

[corrados]

I just read about such a feature request on a Facebook group. For large choral groups that feature might be interesting. I did some quick hack test implementation which then would look like this:

The problem is that if you make the main window small, you only see the lowest row:

You can even shrink the window so that it looks like only one row would be present which is not good:

The coding part is not too complicated. Basically using a QGridLayout instead of a QHBoxLayout and some other small modifications make it possible. But the question is how to configure this? Should Jamulus automatically use multiple rows if the number of faders exceeds a certain number? Or should the user configure this?

BTW: I am not planning to support this anytime soon. I just wanted to raise a feature request here to start a discussion about this feature.

[corrados]

If anybody wants to play with my quick hack code, you can checkout my test branch https://github.com/corrados/jamulus/tree/feature_mult_rows_mix_panel (note that you have to enable some sorting to make it look like the screen shot above).

[ann0see]

This idea looks great (Actually I also thought about that a while ago). I think if you add multiple rows, the layout must be altered a little bit (don't show the mixer board in a scroll-able box but expand the whole window so that you have to scroll the whole window.)

[gene96817]

I am glad this is getting some thought.
Consider grouping all the sliders by instrument/voice parts. Then the sliders can be nested. At the top level, the mixer would be sliders by section. It probably needs some experimentation to know if each musician in a section is accessed by expanding or if they are all at the same level (row) with a section slider. The other complication is who has control over the section balance and how is the section balance managed. All good problems now that we can have large ensembles (>50 musicians).

[pljones]

I'd actually been thinking about switching the orientation but retaining the "compact" style:

+---------------------------+
| X flag icon Name          | ("X" is "channel has you muted")
| M[x] S[x] [===========[]] | ("M[x]" mute checkbox; "S[x]" solo checkbox; "===[]" mix fader)
| G[x] P(@) [-------------] | ("G[x]" group checkbox; "P(@)" (very small) pan control; "-----" channel level)
+---------------------------+

Each of these would be a fixed height and width (with "channel has you muted" and "pan control" always taking up space; flag and icon would also have to be fixed sizes), laid out across a grid panel, wrapping onto multiple rows as needed. That way you could get a lot of players on screen without scrolling and all nicely aligned.

[chrisrimple]

@pljones Love the thinking. While audio engineers may be accustomed to vertical slider controls, there's no reason that they couldn't be horizontal to maximize the layout.

Having a fixed width and height for each musician's controls would allow for 3-4 horizontally on each row. Something that might be easier to implement but still effective would be fixed height (using your control layout) but unlimited width - essentially, rotating the existing controls 90 degrees clockwise. That would result in vertical scrolling, rather than horizontal, to view more musicians/controls, which is both easier to accomplish and more familiar to average computer users.

[corrados]

I want to keep it simple (as usual ;-) ). If you want to have a different fader orientation, then this is for a new Github Issue. In this Issue I want to focus specifically on the multiple rows support while using the single fader setup as is (i.e. vertical fader and everything is vertically stacked).

[mawess]

On our band we require each sectiont to start their names with a specific number.
0 - singers, 1 - komp, 2 - saxes, 3 -trumpets etc
It would be nice if you can group sliders after the names and that each group could is placed under each other.

[corrados]

BTW, if you are a member of the official Jamulus Facebook group, you should check out the following Jamulus screen shot: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10220998002917998&set=p.10220998002917998&type=3. I find that very impressive.

[corrados]

I found time to implement it. Now we have a new menu entry for selecting that the mixer panel shall have one or two rows -> closed.

[mawess]

what decides what goes to second row? or is it more than two rows if they didnt fit in first two?

[corrados]

It is a very simple rule. The faders are equally distributed in the two rows.