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File saving behaviour

Hi
I have a couple possible improvements for how qtractor handles file saving.

I am using 0.5.5 from debian stable repos. I am assuming the behaviour is unchanged in newer versions based on scanning the changelogs.

1. When creating a new project it would be nice to have all recordings go into a sub folder automatically. Right now I just have one massive folder that has 10 or so different projects in it (as I am too lazy to make my own folders).
So lets say I create a new project: "song1.qtr" and save it to ~/music.
Then all of my recorded files would end up in ~/music/song1. Possibly adding more subfolders for each track e.g. ~/music/song1/guitar; ~/music/song1/vocals etc.
This makes it much easier to keep track of and organise files.
It also allows you to have all qtr files in one place while keeping the associated files separate.

2. This may be a bug(?):
Create a new project and save it e.g. song1.qtr
Do "save as" and enter a new project name e.g. song2.qtr
Add a new track "track1" and record some audio.
At this point you will see the recorded audio is appended with the first project name e.g. "song1-track1" even though we are now working in song2.

Happy to log these somewhere else if needed.
Thanks
Chris

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rncbc's picture

let me tell you that all seems to be working as expected or as long ago (maybe not so intelligently:) designed.

in a nutshell: there's these simple xml session files (.qtr, .qts); there's these even simpler session template files (.qtt), same as previous but without any media content, and then there's these full-bundle session archive files (.qtz) where everything goes into one single zip file.

which one you use is at your disposal. iow. it's an user option, and that's precisely the one you take while you do a File/Save As...

otoh. all media filenames are prepended (prefixed) with the session name (cf. File/Properties...) which is not always the same as the session file name. can you see the difference? i hope so ;)

anyhow, but not particular to the point, i'd also recommend you to a more recent version if you can--0.5.5 is way too old anyway, one year+ is a lot of time already.

hth.
cheers

finley's picture

Thanks for the quick reply! I know 0.5.5 is old, they spell stable with a silent b in Debian land :)

"all media filenames are prepended (prefixed) with the session name (cf. File/Properties...) which is not always the same as the session file name. can you see the difference? i hope so ;)"
Yes I can understand that now, but I'm not sure why they should be different? Is it so you can have multiple versions of the same session?

I'm not sure you understood what I meant about the first point, I'd just like the program to able to create a folder for each session automatically. The user manual suggests you create a session folder manually, so it seems like something that could be automated.

Another thing I was wondering about is autosave. Could you please add this in to qtractor? You could set it to save every 5 mins or after every recording perhaps?
I just lost a couple hours work today after my desktop crashed :(

Thanks
Chris

rncbc's picture

I'd just like the program to able to create a folder for each session automatically...
well, not qtractor i'm afraid. unlike others (read ardour:)) qtractor doesn't get the exclusive session directory or folder concept in its design. sorry. you can share the same file-system location (ie. directory or folder) for any session or project you're up to--qtractor doesn't enforce nor automates you to have one single session folder at all, although you may certainly have it if you like, but again, it's your option, not qtractor's ;)

wondering about autosave...
it's planned or better said, session auto-save is on the mighty backlog ;) maybe some day, sooner or later, i'll get over it ;) meanwhile, it could be just the nice week-end coding project you were waiting for. you or someone you know, perhaps? :)) scnr.

cheers

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