UX issues when setting the custom matrix recording duration

[iNecas]

Describe the bug
Setting the custom matrix recording duration has quite terrible experience.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to matrix duration configuration
2. Click on cutom
3. Try to set the duration to 18/4
4. when reaching to 16/4, the UI switches to "4 bars" and hides the custom, having to start over, and do some non-intuitive stuff to avoid this behavior.

Expected behavior
Setting the custom duration is much simpler and more convenient. At minumum, it should not try to be too smart to match to existing durations. Even better would be allowing input by text entry. Also, the duration setting is not consistent with other places, such as slot duration (after recording), that is configured in beats, not bars.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: linux
• Version 2.18.0-pre.2

Additional context
I tried finding a workaround by doing custom mapping in realearn, but it only allows setting the duration in integer bars: so the usage is very limited. Allowing setting the duration in beats instead of bars would be IMO better and consistent across the whole app.

[helgoboss]

Text entry is possible (right click, for numerator and denominator separately).

The "eager matching to existing durations" is supposed to only happen when releasing the mouse button. It shouldn't happen while you are dragging. Does it happen while you are dragging? If yes, that would be a bug.

The reason why most pre-defined recording lengths are multiples of one bar is that people usually want to record multiples of one bar. The Launchpad Pro, for example, also only has record-length presets that are a multiple of one bar. Anyway, you can always resort to beats by using "Custom" and setting the denominator to 4 (or whatever your beat note length is). At least it's consistent with start timing / stop timing ;)

[iNecas]

Thanks for the tip on the right click: pattern I'm not used to in general (tried left click and gave up:). That should do as as a workaround.

I can't use dragging due to issues in Linux + Wayland, as mentioned here #1414 (comment), so I needed to use wheel. which suffers the problem described.

With the workaround in place (right click), I'm fine closing the issue. I still think though that using beats in custom would be more consistent with setting the duration on track.

[helgoboss]

Okay. I added #1414 as new Linux-specific bug and will look into it. So I think we can close this one.