Flavelius
Description:
Improve the MIDI editing experience in the piano roll by introducing draggable floating buttons or proxy widgets to manipulate MIDI notes without covering them with the finger during drag operations.
Problem:
  • When dragging MIDI notes on a touchscreen, the user's finger often obscures the note being moved.
  • This makes it difficult to see the exact pitch or time placement during adjustments.
  • It slows down precise editing and leads to frequent corrections.
Proposed Solution:
  • Implement floating editor buttons or draggable proxies for selected MIDI notes.
  • These buttons could appear above, below, or to the side of the actual note and mirror its movement.
  • Take inspiration from NanoStudio 2’s discontinued implementation, where dedicated floating widgets provided unobstructed editing.
Benefits:
  • Enhances visibility and control during MIDI editing.
  • Enables more accurate pitch and timing adjustments.
  • Makes touchscreen MIDI editing faster, smoother, and less error-prone.
Examples:
  • Drag a floating handle next to a note instead of the note itself to move it.
  • Floating controls stay visible while your finger remains offset.
  • Reduce reliance on zooming in for precision adjustments.
This summary was automatically generated by ChatGPT-4 on 2025-07-12.
Original Post:
Issue:
When trying to adjust/move a midi note in the piano roll editor, my finger is almost always obscuring the currently dragged note entirely, so it's hard to see and know where the note ends up.
Potential Solution:
The discontinued NanoStudio 2 had implemented a great solution to this issue with its floating widgets/buttons, that can be dragged as proxy for the selected notes:
https://www.blipinteractive.co.uk/assets/img/song-editor.jpg
(see bottom and right)
I hope loopy can take inspiration from this.