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