Split window focus issues

I love the ability to split the project window, allowing me to have a few things always visible at the top when I’m scrolling tracks vertically. I use this for markers and a few other things. However, there is a side effect that’s a bit annoying, and I’m wondering if anyone else has a good solution for this.

While I often navigate markers with my control surface, I’ll also double click on a marker with my mouse at times. When I do this, that split window region gets focus. If, for example, I copy an event on a track, double click the marker to move to where I want to paste it, and then do the paste, it creates a new track underneath my markers since that’s the project window pane that has the focus. This means I have to copy the event, double click the marker tab, then go back down to the lower pane where my tracks are and select the track again before pasting so that it has focus.

The annoyance is when I forget and wonder where the stuff I just pasted is, which I eventually find in the upper region. And of course, I have to scroll down the upper region because I have the pane sized to only show the marker and other tracks that are supposed to live there.

Does anyone else run into this in their workflow, and if so, how do you work around it?


In the interest of full disclosure, yes, there may have been profanity. But then, that’s not terribly uncommon in my little world. :slight_smile:

That said, I understand the issue from the programming side of the street. In Windows (and I’m sure Mac as well), only one “window” has focus, and that window gets all keyboard and mouse input. When you select a window, like clicking on the marker tabs, that window gets focus and becomes the default target for subsequent operations.

On a lot of native applications (i.e. regular installed programs like Cubase rather something running in a web browser), you can use the Tab key to cycle through the currently selected data entry fields and buttons.

I wonder if there are there any keyboard shortcuts that would cycle through the various windows, i.e. the split and main project windows, left, right and lower zones, making each of them the active / focus window in turn?

+10.000


Yes, I’ve been burned by this. Unlike the zones, Cubase doesn’t display any visual cue to show you where the focus is. Maybe the answer is for Steinberg to provide some kind of a focus ring like they do for zones?