After doing the FUNCTION-TRACK shortcut to get to the track menu, RETURN returns to Main Menu. Instead, I suggest that it return to the context from which the FUNCTION-TRACK shortcut was activated.
After a couple of months of using NGEN, I can’t see the advantage of returning to Main Menu, and it’s never what I want. I then have to scroll-press-scroll to get back to the original context.
Yeah I do agree with you. I have been talking about menu navigation with another user via email and it’s something I’m also trying to improve in 1.4.
So far the return path has been mostly fixed based for each sub-menu which caused the behaviour you described.
With 1.4, NGEN should now properly return to the previous menu you were on before, which means that if you trigger the Track sub-menu shortcut from the Generator sub-menu, it should return to the Generator sub-menu even if you change the active generator for the track you were on.
I think one exception would be if you open it from the MIDI FX sub-menu and then deactivate the MFX for that same track. This would cause it to return to the Main Menu because it wouldn’t have a MFX sub-menu to return to.
I hope it will return to the same item in the sub-menu that you were just working on and not always item #1 in the sub-menu.
I’d also like to suggest shortcuts to the Generator and MIDI FX menus as we have for the Track menu with the FUNCTION-TRACK shortcut. I find that I go to the Generator menu a lot, more often than the Track menu. And you need to be inside the MIDI FX menu for the macro buttons to operate the MIDI FX, which I sometimes want to do directly.
If there aren’t enough button combinations to cover all these, then I suggest a user setting that selects the functionality of the FUNCTION-TRACK shortcut. The user could select the destination menu that they want.
Yes I can confirm they should return to the same item you were on before (unless you change the active generator and it needs to return to a different generator sub-menu).
Yeah I do agree those would be important shortcuts.
I’ve been thinking about this and maybe Generate + Menu (click) for Generator and Function + Generate + Menu (Click) for MIDI FX could work.
Those shortcuts are available and I think it makes some sense (almost like “Go to the Generate Menu”).
Unfortunately this would create a separate “shortcut logic” to the Track shortcut (FN + Track) but I can’t use FN + Generate since it’s already used for the secondary actions for generators.
The other issue is that I’m adding Track + Menu (click) as a global Track Active / mute toggle in 1.4 which would be a very similar shortcut but with a different purpose.
Another possibility would be to flip the commands and do Menu (hold) + Generate for Generator and Menu (hold) + FN + Generate for MIDI FX. I could also add Menu (hold) for the Track sub-menu for consistency.
This would separate these from the new mute shortcut but I’m not sure if it’d end up making it less instuitive.
Adding a setting for the FN Track shortcut would be possible but I do think it’d make more sense to have these available separately.
I really like this shortcut but I’m wondering if I shouldn’t change it so all sub-menu shortcuts are consistent.
I think it’s impossible to know in advance what’s best without actually playing these things. I would only suggest that, in the long run, consistency is likely the best way to go. There aren’t a lot of buttons here, so I think it’s easy to adapt to new combos no matter how long you’ve been using the device.