Basically, it comes down to this: and I’m sorry to be so blunt. I hope this is taken as constructive criticism. I have been a stalward supporter of WL since version 3.
I’ve never gotten over the UX shift in WL7. I tend to stick with Basic CD because, frankly, it’s easy. The moment I go into Audio Montage I’m in another world. It has all these context-sensitive features—menus that are hidden. If I’m not hovered on the right area I don’t see the menus. And I forget where the hell they -are-. And they’re -never- where I think they should be.
So I avoid the Montage system as much as I can UNLESS I’m working on a large project where I need to focus on it. That only happens every 3-4 months.
I wanted the additional feature so I wouldn’t have to mess with the various ‘windows’ every time I want to burn a CD. I just want the top menu to have -words-. No icons… no hidden functions… no re-learning where the ‘clip’ menu is every time I change from audio montage to just editing single WAV files.
I only spend a small amount of time in WL every day. It’s important to me, but it’s not the main part of my day. I have to switch between Cubase and WL and Adobe Creative Suite… as well as the usual, word processor, web, e-mail.
I need a -fast- way to get this task done without having to memorise something that does not at all work like the rest of my softwares.
Frankly, I resent how UN-standard WL has become since v7. I use Basic CD because it’s the closest thing left to a ‘normal’ Windows program. I hit and it INSERTS a new track. I hit and it DELETES a track. As I expect. I open Audio Montage and there are very few of the familiar landmarks I expect in Windows… like Insert and Delete.
Now… if I spent most of my day in WL, I would memorise it’s paradigm and not complain. But I don’t. And what is worrying is that, now that Cubase is geting more and more eccentric like WL. So now I’ve got -more- things to think about.
In short, I asked for the above small feature request so I don’t have to mess with the parts of WL that are not Windows-standard. I used to feel guilty about ‘not mastering’ the WL7 paradigm, but screw that. Programs should be intuitive. The whole idea of Windows (or Mac or Ubuntu for that matter) is to have a standard way of doing things so it’s not like learning a new language every time one switches between programs.
You hinted that WL9 will bring more ‘integration’ with Cubase. I wonder if that will include the UI. I wonder if it will be a good thing from my POV.
I hope you’ll consider my above request. And also think about my criticism. I depend on WL, but I stopped -enjoying- the experience with WL7 because the whole windowing/hidden feature deal is just -brutal- for part-timers like me.
Best
—JC