3 title: About Ardour documentation
6 <h2>Conventions Used In This Manual</h2>
8 This section covers some of the typographical and language conventions
12 <h3>Keyboards and Modifiers</h3>
14 <dfn>Keyboard bindings</dfn> are shown like this: <kbd>s</kbd> or
15 <kbd class="mod1">x</kbd>.
18 <kbd class="mod1">x</kbd> means "press the <kbd class="mod1"> </kbd> key, keep it pressed
19 and then also press the <kbd>x</kbd> key.
22 You may also see key combinations
23 such as <kbd class="mod12">e</kbd>, which mean that you should hold down
24 the <kbd class="mod1"> </kbd> key <em>and</em> the
25 <kbd class="mod2"> </kbd> key, and then, while keeping them both
26 down, press the <kbd>e</kbd> key.
29 Note that different platforms have different conventions for which
30 modifier key (Control or Command) to use as the primary or most common
31 modifier. When viewing this manual from a machine identifying itself as
32 running OS X, you will see <kbd>Cmd </kbd> where appropriate (for instance
33 in the first example above). On other machines you will see
34 <kbd>Ctrl </kbd> instead.
37 <h3>Mouse Buttons</h3>
39 We refer to <a href="/setting-up-your-system/the-mouse">mouse buttons</a> as
40 <kbd class="mouse">Left</kbd>, <kbd class="mouse">Middle</kbd> and
41 <kbd class="mouse">Right</kbd>. Ardour can use additional buttons, but they have
42 no default behaviour in the program.
45 <h4>Mouse click modifiers</h4>
47 Many editing functions are performed by clicking the mouse while holding a
48 modifier key, for example <kbd class="mouse mod1">Left</kbd>.
53 Some GUI elements can optionally be controlled with the mouse wheel when
54 the pointer is hovering over them. The notation for mouse wheel action is
55 <kbd class="mouse">⇑</kbd> <kbd class="mouse">⇐</kbd>
56 <kbd class="mouse">⇓</kbd> <kbd class="mouse">⇒</kbd>.
59 <h4>Context-click</h4>
61 The term <dfn>context-click</dfn> is used to indicate
62 that you should (typically) <kbd class="mouse">Right</kbd>-click on a particular element of the graphical
63 user interface. Although right-click is the common, default way to do this, there
64 are other ways to accomplish the same thing - this term refers to any of them,
65 and the result is always that a menu specific to the item you clicked on will be
69 <h4>"The Pointer"</h4>
71 When the manual refers to the "pointer", it means the on-screen representation
72 of the mouse position or the location of a touch action if you are using a touch
76 <h3>Other user input</h3>
78 Ardour supports hardware controllers, such as banks of
79 <kbd class="fader">faders</kbd>, <kbd class="knob">knobs</kbd>, or
80 <kbd class="button">buttons</kbd>.
85 Menu items are indicated like this:<br />
86 <kbd class="menu">Top > Next > Deeper</kbd>.<br />
87 Each ">"-separated item indicates one level of a nested (sub-)menu.
90 <h3>Preference/Dialog Options</h3>
92 Choices in various dialogs, notably the Preferences and Properties dialog, are
93 indicated like this:<br />
94 <kbd class="option">Edit > Preferences > Audio > Some
96 Each successive item indicates either a (sub-) menu or a tabbed dialog
97 navigation. The final item is the one to choose or select.
100 If you are requested to deselect an option, you will see something like
102 <kbd class="optoff">Edit > Preferences > Audio > Some other
108 Some dialogs or features may require you to type in some <kbd class="input">data
109 such as this</kbd>. In rare cases, you will be required to perform certain
110 operations at the command line of your operating system:
112 <kbd class="cmd lin">cat /proc/cpuinfo</kbd>
113 <kbd class="cmd mac">sleep 3600</kbd>
114 <kbd class="cmd win">ping www.google.com</kbd>
116 <h3>Program Output</h3>
118 Important messages from Ardour or other programs will be displayed
119 <samp>like this</samp>.
124 Important notes about things that might not otherwise be obvious are shown in
130 Hairy issues that might cause things to go wrong, lose data, impair sound
131 quality, or eat your proverbial goldfish, are displayed in this way.