When will we get our arrow keys back?

After a good deal of working with C7 (and mostly really liking it), I have never gotten used to the now-focus-dependant use of the left and right arrow keys. Those used to move the play cursor and only the play cursor. Now, they (rather uselessly) move “focus” around in the mixer if the mixer was the last thing touched. Is that a done deal? Have I lost the (reliable) use of my two most frequently-used keys? Does anyone know of a workaround?

That sounds very annoying. I don’t have an actual cubase workaround for you but have you ever checked out AutoHotkey?

With it you can set it up so the arrow keys do nothing when the Mixer is frontmost, for example. It does much more too.

I use similar utilities on Mac to get around various annoyances and another member here uses AHK on Windows extensively. Use Quickeys/Keyboard Maestro/Autohotkey to enhance Cubase - Cubase - Steinberg Forums

I worry about those sorts of things because it could also affect e.g. text cursor movement in text dialog fields (one of the rare situations where I do want the arrow keys have a different function). But I’ll still check it out; thanks for the tip.

I made this post as a Feature Request:

Do you mean worry about using autohotkey type app? If so, no need, you can get very fine control using it.

In any case, these are ergonomic issues that need to be worked through, and with each update there are changes and improvements, so, I’m optimistic. Of course, this might prompt you to ask, “what are you smoking?” :wink:

Although I like your feature idea, that’s not what I’m talking about at all. In the new C7 MixConsole, there is a red-outlined “focus” feature. This is presumably to allow arrow-key navigation. I’m a keys-instead-of-mouse guy all day long, but a huge software mixer is one of the few areas where a mouse is just way faster. And the bummer is that this new, minimally-useful feature has made the left/right arrow keys (which formerly ONLY moved the play cursor…which I do EVERY COUPLE OF DAMN SECONDS) focus-dependant. I want to move the cursor forward one bar, but instead some nonsense with a red-outlined box in the mixer happens. (I have dedicated transport buttons on my controller, but they don’t follow the grid the way the left/right keyboard buttons do. And I move around in 1-bar increments constantly while I’m working. Which is why it’s very annoying to now have to click the Arrange window before navigating.) Does that make sense?

Aside from that, there’s the option to consider changing your arrow keystroke to something else and retraining.

I’m pessimistically assuming that’s what I’ll end up needing to do. I don’t even mind retraining; it’s that any other place on the keyboard will be less easy to grab instantly; the arrow keys are at the very bottom and (on my keyboard) even have a nub on the ‘down’ key so that you know you’re in the right position without even looking.

Oh well.

I think your right.

Aloha guys, just to chime in.

1-Tracking in the studio; arrow keys for me are not a big deal.
2-Mixing in the studio; arrow keys become more important.
3-Live on stage; arrow keys are a ‘must have’.

I have noticed that with (almost) every version of
C7, arrow key behavior has changed.

I don’t think I can any longer use arrow keys
on stage with the current (.06) C7 set-up.

So I have chosen to stay with .05 on the laptop
until the next update and see if I can deal with that
arrow key behavior.

In the meantime, I am looking into Steve’s

AutoHotkey

suggestion.

Tanx guys.
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