Select all tracks inside selected folder?

Tj99 · October 27, 2019, 3:07pm

Hello,

I am searching for a way to select all tracks inside the selected folder. I would need that for a macro/PLE but cannot find a way to do that. Maybe anyone has an idea?

Martin.Jirsak · October 28, 2019, 10:03am

Hi,

Unfortunately I found only one way, which I don’t like myself at all.

First, you have to somehow “mark” the tracks inside of the folder. I was thinking, what properties can the tracks inside of the folder inherit from the folder (and also which property is available in the PLE as Filter Target). The only one I found is Event is Muted. So if you Mute the Folder track first, all tracks inside of the folder becomes muted too. Then you can select all muted track by using PLE.

So you would use a macro with two PLEs:

Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track:
Container Type is | Equal | FolderTrack | And
Property | Property is set | Event is selected

Track Operation | Mute | Enable

Transform

Select all Muted tracks
Property | Property is set | Event is muted

Action Target is empty

Select

The disadvantage is, that you have to make sure there is no Muted track, before you start to do this, otherwise it will be selected too. You can use another PLE to unmute it, or just. command in your Macro: Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

At the end, you should deactivate the Mute state again. So your Macro would look like this:

Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.
PLE > Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track
PLE > Select all Muted tracks
Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

Note really elegant, I’m sorry. I couldn’t come to other solution.

Tj99 · October 28, 2019, 10:15am

Martin.Jirsak:

Hi,

Unfortunately I found only one way, which I don’t like myself at all.

First, you have to somehow “mark” the tracks inside of the folder. I was thinking, what properties can the tracks inside of the folder inherit from the folder (and also which property is available in the PLE as Filter Target). The only one I found is Event is Muted. So if you Mute the Folder track first, all tracks inside of the folder becomes muted too. Then you can select all muted track by using PLE.

So you would use a macro with two PLEs:

Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track:
Container Type is | Equal | FolderTrack | And
Property | Property is set | Event is selected

Track Operation | Mute | Enable

Transform

Select all Muted tracks
Property | Property is set | Event is muted

Action Target is empty

Select

The disadvantage is, that you have to make sure there is no Muted track, before you start to do this, otherwise it will be selected too. You can use another PLE to unmute it, or just. command in your Macro: Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

At the end, you should deactivate the Mute state again. So your Macro would look like this:

Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

PLE > Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track

PLE > Select all Muted tracks

Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

Note really elegant, I’m sorry. I couldn’t come to other solution.

No worries, thanks anyway for your help!
I think I found another way which works under all conditions, but I did not try that out yet. Got that advice from another user yesterday:

Select folder

then use this Macro:

PLE > open folder (if it is closed, it gets opened, if it is opened nothing happens)
PLE > Visibility > only show this folder and hide everything else (now you see only the folder and its tracks)
PLE > select all audio/midi/etc. tracks in project (now all the tracks inside the folder get selected)
PLE > Visibility > Unhide everything

Martin.Jirsak · October 28, 2019, 10:36am

Hi,

Good one. I always forget to use this Hide/Show tracks as a “marker”.

vncvr · October 28, 2019, 1:08pm

Tj99:

Martin.Jirsak:

Hi,

Unfortunately I found only one way, which I don’t like myself at all.

First, you have to somehow “mark” the tracks inside of the folder. I was thinking, what properties can the tracks inside of the folder inherit from the folder (and also which property is available in the PLE as Filter Target). The only one I found is Event is Muted. So if you Mute the Folder track first, all tracks inside of the folder becomes muted too. Then you can select all muted track by using PLE.

So you would use a macro with two PLEs:

Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track:
Container Type is | Equal | FolderTrack | And
Property | Property is set | Event is selected

Track Operation | Mute | Enable

Transform

Select all Muted tracks
Property | Property is set | Event is muted

Action Target is empty

Select

The disadvantage is, that you have to make sure there is no Muted track, before you start to do this, otherwise it will be selected too. You can use another PLE to unmute it, or just. command in your Macro: Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

At the end, you should deactivate the Mute state again. So your Macro would look like this:

Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

PLE > Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track

PLE > Select all Muted tracks

Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

Note really elegant, I’m sorry. I couldn’t come to other solution.

No worries, thanks anyway for your help!
I think I found another way which works under all conditions, but I did not try that out yet. Got that advice from another user yesterday:

Select folder

then use this Macro:

PLE > open folder (if it is closed, it gets opened, if it is opened nothing happens)

PLE > Visibility > only show this folder and hide everything else (now you see only the folder and its tracks)

PLE > select all audio/midi/etc. tracks in project (now all the tracks inside the folder get selected)

PLE > Visibility > Unhide everything

If you have tracks hidden in the folder this may not work for the ones that are hidden.

You can fix this though if you do want to also get the ones hidden in the folder by

-unhide all tracks in project

PLE > open folder (if it is closed, it gets opened, if it is opened nothing happens)

PLE > Visibility > only show this folder and hide everything else (now you see only the folder and its tracks)

PLE > select all audio/midi/etc. tracks in project (now all the tracks inside the folder get selected)
-undo visibility change
-undo visibility change
-unhide selected tracks > (tracks should still be selected)

This will also un-hide any hidden tracks in the folder and get you back to your previous visibility state before you executed the macro, and it should maintain the selection you want.

but I could be wrong.

Graveley · October 28, 2019, 6:56pm

lovegames that is beautiful!

etchell · July 24, 2020, 7:15pm

And in 2020 still no easy solution for this simple function?
I mean, the folder is a great feature but lacks of simple things and what is more obvious to want to select tracks of a folder just with one command or click?
Asking the same question now in Greg’s hangout session. Maybe he has something to offer?

Martin.Jirsak · July 25, 2020, 7:08am

Hi,

Do you want to select the tracks or the events? What is the exact use case please? What do you want to do next?

vncvr · January 6, 2021, 8:15pm

I agree, it wold be great if this was a built in function.

I think the protocol should operate so that the requirement is that either the folder track needs to be selected, and or, at least one track inside said folder.

There should maybe be a Select All Tracks in Folder (Deep) as well, which would also select sub-folders and their contents.

Alex_Niedt · June 23, 2022, 2:20am

Is this really still not a thing? Was just trying to disable all tracks in a certain folder and realized I couldn’t even select the tracks within the folder in a simple fashion. I’d assumed selecting the folder would select everything inside it for a command like that.

Tj99 · June 23, 2022, 6:52am

Unfortunately not.
But Martin.J found a workaround, which actually works. I’d just open a after selecting the folder, just in case it is closed.

So you would use a macro with two PLEs:

Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track:
Container Type is | Equal | FolderTrack | And
Property | Property is set | Event is selected

Track Operation | Mute | Enable

Transform

Select all Muted tracks
Property | Property is set | Event is muted

Action Target is empty

Select

The disadvantage is, that you have to make sure there is no Muted track, before you start to do this, otherwise it will be selected too. You can use another PLE to unmute it, or just. command in your Macro: Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

At the end, you should deactivate the Mute state again. So your Macro would look like this:

Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

PLE > Mute all tracks in the selected Folder track

PLE > Select all Muted tracks

Edit > Deactivate All Mute States.

Note really elegant, I’m sorry. I couldn’t come to other solution.

ggmanestraki · June 23, 2022, 12:47pm

I see that the tag is Cubase 10, and I’m not trying to be a sm@$^@ss, but this is finally easily done in 12.

Tj99 · June 23, 2022, 6:21pm

Really? Is it a key command or a PLE command?

ggmanestraki · June 23, 2022, 9:16pm

I used the new PLE filter “Parent is selected”. It’s possible to ctrl click select a bunch of open folders, and have only the contents selected.

Edit: Now that I have some time, I’ll post it.

The Macro

The PLE presets

And in action it works like this.

Select Tracks in folders

The downside is that you can’t select the tracks when a folder is open, but that’s easily fixed by not using the first PLE preset, or splitting it in two commands so that we have more control.