--- title: The Ruler --- Ardour's Ruler

The Ruler scales the session along time, allows navigating, and can be marked for different uses. The main use of the Ruler is to move the playhead : clicking anywhere on the timeline will bring the playhead at this location in time.

It is made of a succession of rows, each having a special role related to time.From top to bottom, those rows are :

Timecode
scaling the session whith the traditionnal Hours:Mins:Secs:Frames notation
Bars:Beats
slicing the time according to the time signature ot the Meter
Meter
shows the time signature. It can be changed along the timeline, by Right click > New Meter. The Bars:Beats ruler will reflect the change.
Tempo
shows the BPM. It can be changed along the timeline, by Right click > New Tempo. The Bars:Beats ruler will reflect the change.
Range Markers
allow to create and modify ranges directly on the Ruler.
Loop/Punch Ranges
are special kind of ranges designed to be played as a loop and to do punch recording, i.e. recording on a precise section of time, respectively.
CD Markers
are markers designed to be used while creating a recording that has to be split in time, as an audio CD
Location Markers
is meant to receive any kind of marker, user generated or from Ardour itself.

Most of the operations on the markers are described in Working with Markers, while the Meter, Tempo, Bars:Beats and Timecode use are described in Tempo and Meter.