Hi again Alexey, I was out all day but I'm home now and just had a look around the new version. Man you're quick, and amazingly dedicated to getting these things right, especially for someone working essentially for free. A lot of people would love to have this kind of turnaround from a company they're giving lots of money to! I will definitely drop something in your paypal next time my own tops up, and I'd also love to send you some music, I'll PM you about that.
I hope we are close to working configuration now, but still many things to check/fix/implement. Please download the latest test version again.
We certainly are! It's pretty much as good as the original now, maybe a bit better - some things still to fix for sure and not quite there but other things already better - see details below!
The intention was to show on both displays the same information (since I can not see real one). But there was a bug, which I hope is fixed now (thanks to you report that you see nothing!).
With '*', we have to discuss later (sure it is possible, as well as any other information).
It works now, the AZ display is mirrored on the device display, so no need to make that distinction anymore. Yes, we can talk about possible refinements once everything is in place. I have some ideas...
One thing that the original plugin does well is to display contextual information about what the controls will do - for example, in Plug-in mode, when you change the parameter to be controlled it tells you what the current parameter is, as best it can. When changing a parameter knob, it tells you the current value. Sometimes when you are touching an encoder, it will use the whole display to give information about the parameter and sometimes even a simple slider to show the value. On encoder release, it reverts to the default display for the current mode.
None of this is essential, and of course nobody should expect you to replicate it precisely (for no money! on a discontinued device!). But it's a thought - simple visual feedback from the device screen is a bit more direct than twisting a knob while looking up at the computer screen. Of course, it might also be distracting - maybe it's better to just have the display help you grab the right knob, know what it will do, and then use our ears...
On the plus side, Auto mode now works as expected, you can switch to it from any other mode, no irregularities.
The problem with press/touch was still there. I hope it is fixed, see later... Please redo the test, and if it works correctly many other functions should work as well.
The test now checks out, all working and the results on the overview page are as expected - touch and release, press and release all showing what they should in both areas of the Overview page.
With regards to the triple-push on switching from track to bus mode: I have narrowed this down and noticed an odd thing: If the AZ plugin control window is open, and *selected*, it behaves as it should - switching back and forth with a single push. It also works if another program is open, like for example this browser window, and Sonar is running in the background (I can see from my console on a 2nd monitor). If the plugin window is not open at all, it still needs the triple push - two pushes to change from track to bus, one from bus to track.
Obviously this is not a big problem as most of the time there would be no reason to work with the plugin window open, but I thought it might be useful to help you track down whatever is causing it to take more presses than necessary.
Also, and a bit more of a problem, is that if the Console is selected - whether in the Multidock or its own window - the track/bus encoder push does not work at all.
EQ should work. It can happened that you have to switch it "on" once manually (yet another Sonar bug), but I think the result is saved in project.
There was typo in my preset code, it is fixed now.
EQ now working fine, everything is in place to control the four main bands from the Alphatrack. The problem with the knob resolution with regards to the Filter Mode (Hybrid/Pure etc) is still there - takes many turns to change 'downward', in opposite direction it is very fast. Not a showstopper but strange to be sure.
It might be better to control with the fader, but with flip functionality still not working in modes other than Pan (see below), it's not an option here yet. We *could* think about assigning one of the Function buttons to this.
It would also be great, eventually, in the name of completeness, to get control of the low- and high-shelving EQs, as well as Gloss and the shelf/bell switches on the low and high bands. It occurs to me that the low/high shelving ones could just be added as two more bands to control from the band select knob; and the rest could be done with a third 'page' on the EQ mode button - with knobs assigned to Gloss, low-band-mode and high-band-mode respectively. OR they could be assigned to buttons if they can be set up to be mode-dependent as you suggest.
4. The 'Send' mode left encoder, which should change between active sends, does so but it seems, from the information in the Overview window, to be hard-coded to 8 sends
The situation is the following. It is possible for plug-in to detect how many FXes and Parameters are there. But (while possible) that is not easy to code inside AZ Controller... I still think how to improve that.
But once I have coded it for myself, I have found that the result is far from ideal, at least for me. Let say your track 1 has 3 sends and track 2 has 1 send. You are on track 1 and selected send 3 to adjust let say reverb send. For whatever reason, you have temporarily switched to track 2 and have adjusted its volume (or to mute it). You are back on Track one, continue adjusting reverb but... you are adjusting something else: when you was on track 2, there was no send 3. So, current "send" is down to "1".
Hmm. Here's what I think would be the ideal situation: in the display, on line 2, where at the moment it says "Send Level Pan", you could have it say "Send:1 Lvl Pan", or "Send:2 Lvl Pan" depending on where it's set. Then there's visual feedback and there's no confusion about which send you're affecting.
It's certainly not a showstopper, I'm just trying to help think of how it could be optimized, since you seem - like me - interested in finding the 'elegant' solution to these things... but are also - unlike me - actually able to code...
5. OK there's a problem with the motor fader...
Please recheck now. I also switch off motor when changing strip by encoder. But whole "touch/push" was broken (MIDI mapping), so fader had no chance to work correctly.
Works now, with one exception: If you use the encoder to change tracks it delays engaging the fader, as in the original plugin, but unfortunately it does not then engage it again, until you change to a different track with either the buttons or the mouse. It also doesn't engage if you use the mouse to select the track or bus it's already on - you have to change it.
The same happens when you push the encoder to change to Bus control mode or vice versa. It does not re-engage the motor unless you then change the track (or bus) with the buttons or the mouse. Possibly related to the odd behaviour on the encoder push above?
6. Flip functionality only seems to be accessible from Pan mode, from the other modes it does nothing. On the original you can flip pan, send level, EQ or plug-in parameters as well, from their respective pages. The display also indicates the flip by means of an arrow beside the flipped parameter.
Flip is coded the same way as in the original plug-in. Display we will also fix, once the rest is working.
OK but it doesn't work yet, which it does in the original plugin. It's unchanged from the previous version - works from Pan mode, and engages the motor now, which is great, but does not work in other modes, which it does in the original (let's call it the Frontier plugin, for clarity).
... flashing lights...
Possible to implement but not there yet. Once we are at "display" point, I will code that as well. Which frequency of flashing you prefer?
No problem and obviously no hurry! Off the top of my head, I guess around 2-3 flashes a second would be fine. Fast enough that you can tell at a glance, not so fast that it's annoying or distracting... The original appears to be one flash per second, which I find a bit slow to see right away.
All controls in AZ Controller are "User defined" controls. And in fact it is as easy as selecting from a drop-down list(s... I mean several) !
Switch to "F1" Logical Control in Logic Tab. Default "Save/Recall" in the original plug is also coded there. Let say you want "Commands":
* Click on "Call ((None))_gf..." action (the second one), click "Delete"
* Click on "Recall parameter..." action (the first one), change type from "Save/Recall" to "Command".
You have "Drop down list" of commands you see in the original plug-in (with exception of "some", they do not specify the whole list in docs, special Alphatrack commands). Do the same for "Shift:+" actions to change behavior when shift is active.
But since it is "Ultra" you can add for example "Mode: xxx" conditions to make Function Keys reaction mode dependent.
As with everything else in AZ Controller, in case you want something "simple", it is simple. In case you want something more complex, it is more complex. And in case you want something "smart" (like Alphatrack preset as a whole), the configuration is also "smart" 
It's true. It's a bit more complicated, but that's a small price to pay for a whole lot more flexibility and possibilities. So I'm certainly up for a small learning curve in order to get serious configurability. Mode-specific function keys would be great! But, even harder to remember...
I realize I haven't given you any feedback about the slider yet. It works pretty well! It could be faster to slide on the basic one-finger mode, it's a bit too slow at present. On two-finger mode - which engages FF and RW - it's a bit different than with the Frontier plugin - there it stops as soon as you take your finger off the strip, whereas with yours it continues until you either double-tap the strip - a single tap won't do it - or press the corresponding FF or RW transport button - the opposite one doesn't work. Play or Stop also don't do anything - it feels a bit stuck and it took me a while to figure it out. Now that I know, it's OK, but it would probably better if it could be made to either stop on finger-release or stop with any transport action.
Also, on the Frontier plugin you can tap the left and right ends of the strip to move to the previous/next marker (and to the start and/or end of the project if at the first/last marker). On your plugin only the left tap for previous marker is working, tapping the right end of the strip does nothing. Again, a very minor point, but I noticed it...
That's it for now!
Thanks for testing! Several more iterations and it should work good. I can start implement "extra wishes" then.
No problem happy to help and again, I'm kind of amazed at your dedication and willingness to take this to the level you have. Chapeau!
