Problem with adjust lyrics in KHPro 5.0

[stritti]

By mistake I already placed this thread in the KHPro Test section. I think here it is right:

I have a problem with adjusting single words which worked great in previous versions. Now the start < > will make the sweeping of the word longer or shorter and is not moving it backwards/forwards. Ctrl+< or ctrl+shift+> does not have any effect. Maybe because I'm working with a German keyboard layout (but was working in the past).
Maybe for future release to use < and > to move a word backwards/forwards and + and - to make the sweeping longer/shorter.
In the moment I cannot use this function anymore.

Wolfgang from Germany

[George]

I see no reason for the adjust lyrics function to have been changed.

The old method was better and easier to use. Everything was accomplished with the mouse. Now we go from the mouse to the keyboard < > and the CTRL key. It's not near as user friendly, and doesn't seem to function as well either.

Duets or no I may go back to my older version. Day to day ease of use is more important to me than the occassional duet, and I do work with KHP almost every day.

Sorry,

George

[admin]

Originally Posted by stritti

By mistake I already placed this thread in the KHPro Test section. I think here it is right:

I have a problem with adjusting single words which worked great in previous versions. Now the start < > will make the sweeping of the word longer or shorter and is not moving it backwards/forwards. Ctrl+< or ctrl+shift+> does not have any effect. Maybe because I'm working with a German keyboard layout (but was working in the past).

Maybe for future release to use < and > to move a word backwards/forwards and + and - to make the sweeping longer/shorter.
In the moment I cannot use this function anymore.

Wolfgang from Germany

Wolfgang, thank you for your feedback.

FIRST...
Have you read the instructions in the Manual? Please forgive me if you have, but I believe the changes we made from how it used to work may be confusing you. I spent a lot of time trying to make it clear how it now works.

1. We now only allow adjusting the highlight on ONE word at a time, no longer multiple selected words at a time.

2. The < and > move the LEADING EDGE of the highlight for the selected word to highlight earlier or later respectively.

3. You can't use < to move the highlight leading edge further to the left than the end of the highlight on the last word on the line above. If you need to do this, adjust the trailing edge on the highlight of the last word on the line above, then adjust it for the first word on the line below. You can use > to move the highlight leading edge to start later.

4. The Ctrl + < and > move the TRAILING EDGE the same as above.

5. You can't use Ctrl+> to move the trailing edge of the highlight on the last word on a line further than the leading edge of the highlighting on the first word on the line below. If you need to do this, first move the leading edge of the highlight on the first word on the line below, then adjust it for the last word on the line above. The Ctrl+< will allow adjusting the trailing edge to start earlier.

I hope this helps you understand why these adjuster keys act as they do.

We have never (as I recall) had a way to "move a word", other than click and drag the word to change its order in the sentence. I also don't recall we ever used "ctrl+shift+>".


SECOND...
You wrote: "Maybe for future release to use < and > to move a word backwards/forwards and + and - to make the sweeping longer/shorter."

I don't understand what you mean by move the "word" backwards/forwards. The "words" don't move, only the highlight timing in relation to the music. Maybe you could explain this further if I am wrong.

Also, it is important to move the LEADING EDGE or the TRAILING EDGE of the highlighting. I don't understand what you mean by making it "longer/shorter". Again, maybe you can explain this further.


THIRD...
Initially, IN THE ADJUST SCREEN ONCE YOU STOP PLAY OR SELECT A WORD, we tried to make the line holding the selected word to appear in the center of the screen, and the "Adjust Area" words to always appear on ONE display page on the line with the selected word, or the lilne above it or the line below it, but all "activity" happening only on one screen.

We were not able to make this happen.

The problem is seen the worst where the selected word is the first (or last) on a page. In this case, you will always see the prior page words draw and the "Adjust Area" words highlight, then the next page (with the selected first word) draws and highlights across the selected word and the "Adjust Area" following it.

This action forces your eyes to jump from the bottom right of the prior page to the top left of the page with the selected word. This is optically confusing, and I was shocked I ever let it out working that way.

However, after a week of time trying to get the "selected line" to draw center screen and failing, we abandoned this and left it as it has been.


I look forward to you addressing my points. I hope my explanation will make it clear how it now works.

We are prepared to make small changes, but not re-engineer the entire Adjust Lyrics operation. The vast majority of our users never edit. They simply place the lyrics again (I addressed this in the manual).

However, I would like for you to be able to use version 5.00.

[admin]

Originally Posted by George

I see no reason for the adjust lyrics function to have been changed.

The old method was better and easier to use. Everything was accomplished with the mouse. Now we go from the mouse to the keyboard < > and the CTRL key. It's not near as user friendly, and doesn't seem to function as well either.

Duets or no I may go back to my older version. Day to day ease of use is more important to me than the occassional duet, and I do work with KHP almost every day.

Sorry,

George

Well, the adjust lyrics had to be changed to make it possible to do duets without spending hours per song. Should I regret that we added that function, or that we changed how Adjusting works? No, I don't.

George, as we always run into with existing users, the "old way" is what you are accustomed to using. Thus, there is a learning curve.

First, if you are spending so much time as you imply adjusting highlighting on miss-tapped words, you should reconsider placing the lyrics again. Unless you are different from us at MTU, and others who use KHPro daily also, you will do a faster and better job replacing the lyrics than editing many of them.

We didn't change the screen format or dimensions to make the "look and feel" identical for the majority of our users who don't use Adjust Lyrics. To do this, and add the duet line color assignments into the Adjust screen (the only place we perceived they could be added without an entirely new screen... which we chose not to do), we ran out of room to have four buttons (<, >, Ctrl+<, Ctrl+>) to mouse click.

This is the old "keyboardist" -vs- "mouser" -vs- "both" GUI. Yes, we now only provide keys to be used during the adjust operation. However, I see that as a minor relearning. I"m sure you may disagree, but once you have your selected word, and you use the Alt+n keys to initiate Adjust Play, it's simple to move your right hand two keys to the right and position over the < and > keys. The Ctrl key pressed with the left hand is no problem. Now, if you are demanding to be a 100% "mouser", then I can see my argument falls on deft ears.

I hope all the other features we added into 5.00 will make your CDG production easier. It's your choice to use or not use 5.00, but I don't see us adding these buttons back in.

[George]

Originally Posted by admin

First, if you are spending so much time as you imply adjusting highlighting on miss-tapped words, you should reconsider placing the lyrics again. Unless you are different from us at MTU, and others who use KHPro daily also, you will do a faster and better job replacing the lyrics than editing many of them.

Sorry you misread what I said, but I don't see where I implied I was spending a lot of time adjusting words on a song.

I said I use the program daily, not just the function in question. I rarely never have a homebrew project in the mill.

With that much practical experience over nine years and several hundred songs using the program I think I can see what works best from the user standpoint, and what doesn't. It only took a few moments to absorb the changes.

Take Care,
George

[stritti]

Hello,
just want to explain what I ment with 'move' words (it's of course my bad English. Sorry for that). I mean: When I use < then in the past the highlighted word changed the colour earlier (if you hit the spacebar too late while creating the lyrics). I did not want to start again from the beginning when I made a misstake just on one single word so I used the adjust lyrics screen and it worked so well. When I pressed < it changed the colour earlier and when I pressed > it started to change colour later (on the German keyboard > it's shift+> as < and > are on the same key).
Now at least on the German Keyboard < and > makes colour changing longer or shorter but does not make it to start earlier or later.
Ctrl + < does not work and nothing is changing and to get crtl + > I have to hit ctrl+ shift+>. This does not work too any more. Therefore my suggestion was to use < to start (I think you call it sweeping) earlier and > to start sweeping later and + to make sweeping on a word longer and - to make sweeping on a word shorter.

Yes I red the manual of course.
Maybe the problem I have is more clear now and of course it's clear that you had to change the function because of the duet option.

Sorry again for my bad English

Wolfgang from Germany

[alanross]

Wolfgang, Since I am using a standard American English keyboard, I can't really advise you on your keyboard, but I wanted to ask if you had tried to change the sweeping on the word that appears before the selected word?

In other words; if you have the line:

"I don't want to cry anymore"

and you are trying to change the word "cry"

did you try to use Ctrl< on the word "to"?

Using Crtl< on the word "to" will make the sweeping of "to" end a little sooner. Then you can use < on the word "cry" to make it begin a little sooner.

To simplify it even a little more, here's a little guide:

FOR EACH WORD
Use < to Begin sweeping a word a little Sooner
Use > to Begin sweeping a word a little Later
Use Crtl < to make the sweeping End a little Sooner
Use Crtl > to make the sweeping End a little Later

If the beginning of a word won't start any sooner when you use <, then you may have to go to the word before it and use Crtl < to make the previous word end sooner. Then you can move the beginning of the word you really want to change.

Does this makes sense to you? If this doesn't work, then perhaps the changes made to the program did create a problem for the German keyboard.

- Alan