Discussion on the Corresponding Functions of the New and Old Slash Key

[XHG20033]

Current Situation

Before February 2022, the function corresponding to the slash key was "View: Move edit cursor to play cursor". Since then, the action bound to it has been changed to "Scrub: Toggle looped-segment scrub at edit cursor". Although the hotkey is now more reasonable, a long-term usage habit of using the slash key to move the edit cursor to the play cursor has already been formed. If users directly reassign the slash key to its original bound action to align with their habits, they will no longer be able to use the looped-segment scrub function.

I wonder if you have similar habits, and what methods you usually use to achieve the effect of moving the edit cursor to the play cursor—do you use the play/pause method (default Ctrl+Space) , or do you check the option "Move relative to the play cursor for time movement commands during playback" in OSARA Configuration (Ctrl+F12) and then continue using the slash key? As I am from China, I would like to share my views based on the domestic usage environment here.

For the play/pause action, the default assigned hotkey is Ctrl+Space. This hotkey is usually occupied by input methods that support Chinese input—for example, Microsoft Pinyin Input Method uses Ctrl+Space to switch between Chinese and English. Additionally, many REAPER tutorials in China were recorded before the hotkey update, and in most of these tutorials, the way the instructors moved the edit cursor to the play cursor was almost always using the original slash key. This has led many people learning REAPER to continue following this habit.

Regarding the method of checking "Move relative to the play cursor for time movement commands during playback" and then using the slash key, there are several points that I think are not ideal, though this may be related to its implementation principle.

First, it changes the final effect of the PageUp/PageDown keys. If I start playing from bar 1 and press the PageDown to move forward 1 measure when the playback reaches beat 3, it will jump to bar 2 beat 3, which is inconsistent with REAPER’s original effect. Moreover, when the slash key is pressed during playback, the screen reader will speak the current manual scrub mode ("tape scrub" or "one shot"), which I personally find to be a suboptimal experience.

Expectations

Next, I would like to share my personal solution. I used the Cycle Action Editor... to create a conditional action named "Cycle: Toggle looped-segment scrub when stopping, or move edit cursor to play cursor when playing". Its internal principle is as follows:

• IF; If the next action is ON
• 1007; Transport: Play
• 40434; View: Move edit cursor to play cursor
• ELSE; Else
• 41187; Scrub: Toggle looped-segment scrub at edit cursor
• ENDIF; End of conditional statement

Then I assigned the slash key to this action in the Action List. This achieves the optimal experience, allowing both functions to be used without any side effects.

Therefore, I would like to initiate a discussion here: Is it possible to build a similar logic into OSARA? This would enable both functions to be fulfilled simultaneously.

[ScottChesworth]

Thanks for letting us know what OSARA users in China are experiencing. It would be possible to replicate the functionality of your cycle action in OSARA, but to me it feels like we'd be forcing an unintuitive association between those two actions, so I'd prefer to resolve this with a small key map adjustment instead.

I think "View: Move edit cursor to play cursor" could return to the Slash key, moving "Scrub: Toggle looped-segment scrub at edit cursor" to Alt+Shift+Slash instead. IMO these are solid choices because:

1. The new binding for looped segment uses the same modifiers as setting start and end loop points.
2. Much like in the Chinese user community, we still have reputable training content that refers to the prior mapping, whereas there are few (if any) significant resources showing looped segment on Slash.

Would those key map changes resolve the problem?

[ScottChesworth]

I can't reproduce the issue where scrub style is reported unexpectedly here yet. Please let us know exactly how your OSARA Configuration options are set and post the keystrokes/actions you're using step by step.

[XHG20033]

he option "Move relative to the play cursor for time movement commands during playback" is checked, and the action corresponding to the slash key is "Scrub: Toggle looped-segment scrub at edit cursor", pressing the slash key during playback will cause the screen reader to announce the current scrub mode ("one shot" or "tape scrub"). The main flaw here is that pressing the slash key triggers text announcement, but the actual intention of pressing the key at this moment is only to move the edit cursor to the play cursor. This results in the announced content being inconsistent with the actual action, and I personally don’t think the announcement is necessary.
Additionally, as mentioned earlier, after checking "Move relative to the play cursor for time movement commands during playback", the behavior of edit cursor movement methods like page up/down is affected. For example, it moves the play cursor one measure left or right instead of moving the edit cursor itself.
I have also considered your suggestion: reassign the slash key back to "Move edit cursor to play cursor", and set Alt+Shift+Slash as the hotkey for "Scrub: Toggle looped-segment scrub at edit cursor". This solution can indeed resolve the current issue, but it seems a bit cumbersome for users who frequently need to use looped-segment scrub, as it requires pressing three keys repeatedly.
Alternatively, what about this setup:
• Ctrl+Slash: Scrub: Toggle looped-segment scrub at edit cursor
• Alt+Shift+Slash: Scrub: Toggle preference for one-shot segment scrub when moving edit cursor
Since the "Toggle looped-segment scrub" action is frequently used when precisely positioning edit locations, I believe this function should be assigned to a hotkey with as few keys as possible. On the other hand, "Toggle preference for one-shot segment scrub when moving edit cursor" is a preference-related action that doesn't require frequent switching, so assigning it to a hotkey with more key combinations won't cause much inconvenience.
What do you think?