Flo Tools Observations

[Toby Davey]

Hi, 

Thanks to all involved in putting Flo Tools together a fantastic bit of software making life a bit easier for all us visually impaired Pro Tools users.

I have only recently installed Flo Tools as I was waiting for the upgrade to Pro Tools 2020.3 to become available here in  the UK in my Avid Link and then waited a bit for Flo Tools 2020.3.1 to come out too.  I have listened to Slau’s great audio introduction to Flo Tools and read through the ReadMe notes before installing and also have been keeping an eye on all the emails and WhatsApp messages about Flo Tools too.  

So now to my observations on Flo Tools.

Firstly, this might be me, might be due to my Mac but am I right in thinking that the Inspector group commands such as ‘L’, ‘V’, ‘m’ etc only work in the Mix window?  In the Edit window I can do things like double tapp ‘L’ to turn level metering on and off but don’t get any feedback of the levels unless I am in the Mix window, likewise with volume, etc.  

When installing I made sure that all the settings for VoiceOver, Pro Tools, Keyboard Maestro and even switching the keyboard to US were done per the instructions in the ReadMe pages.  

All the Flo Tools short cuts work as should be and the inspector group commands work as mentioned above in the Mix window. 

So did I miss something in the ReadMe or the great audio introduction to Flo Tools as I spent quite a lot of time today trying to work out why the inspector group commands were not working in the Edit window, going through old PTAccess Group emails, etc. 

As I say a great piece of software and thanks again for all those involved in Flo Tools. 

Cheers 

Toby 

[Slau Halatyn]

Hi Toby,

Thanks for the message and kind words. Glad to hear you're putting Flo Tools to use.

Regarding the Inspector, it does actually work in the Edit window as well. As long as the track heights are Medium, you can use the same commands. The thing is, of course, you have to be focused on a track just like in the Mix window. Of course, the track orientation is up and down rather than left to right and it's not as easy to quickly get to the vertical orientation of the visible tracks. To further add a caveat, VoiceOver will not see any level meter within a track unless 1) the Edit window view is set to show meters and 2) the tracks are visible within the timeline portion of the Edit window. As you may recall, VoiceOver sees things that are not necessarily visible to sighted users. Things can easily be scrolled off screen in either direction. When that is the case, VoiceOver can navigate to the off-screen track but, since it's technically off screen, Pro Tools doesn't generate any real-time level information. It would sort of be a waste of graphics resources. If you look in the Drop Box folder, I did a quick demo for Ramy regarding tracks navigation in the Edit window. Have a listen to that and it'll illustrate some of the navigational quirks. I didn't touch upon Flo Tools there but it's more about the overall navigation and how to tell if something's visible or not.

Hope that helps,

Slau

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ptaccess+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/db052c2c-72ca-4ad5-9f93-0b81de51f845%40googlegroups.com.

[Toby Davey]

Hi Slau, 

As usual thanks so much for your words of wisdom.  I did listen to your demo of the edit window and fully get that VO is seeing things that arn’t in the window. 

This might sound stupid but how do I get to see the actual level metres in the edit view window.  

I have checked all the things I think need to be checked when going to the view menu and going down to edit view.  I can interact with the tracks in the edit view window and can see that the words level metre are there just above comments and if I interact with the audio i/o I can see more info and click on the output window and of course I get more info there. 

The track heights are all set to medium too.

Maybe I am missing something in the edit window. 

Best and thanks 

Toby 

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/ptaccess/N-x6rNVjaNI/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to ptaccess+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/A056DB72-37BD-41A1-BBC4-2C1C14E9B1C2%40gmail.com.

[Slau Halatyn]

Hi Toby,

Actually, even in the minimal view, the level meter will be there. I left a message on the PT WhatsApp group demonstrating exactly how it should work for you. Hope that helps. Let me know if you get it to work.

Cheers,

Slau

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/AC572384-F38C-487B-8CD0-1BA350CB6496%40gmail.com.

[Christopher Gilland]

Guys, I'd love to join the whatsapp group,


Can someone send me the info? I do have Whatsapp installed, I think. If
not though I can get it again really really really easily.


Chris.

[Steven]

I would also like to join the ‎WhatsApp group


Cheers,
Steven Salas
Vice-President
Austin Council of the Blind

> On Apr 21, 2020, at 3:00 PM, Christopher Gilland <clgil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Guys, I'd love to join the whatsapp group,

>
>
> Can someone send me the info? I do have Whatsapp installed, I think. If not though I can get it again really really really easily.
>
>
> Chris.
>
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ptaccess+u...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/cdffdd3d-a023-84a4-5d4e-478ca24da2bc%40gmail.com.

[Toby Davey]

Hi Slau, 

Thought it would be easier writing an email rather than a long voice message in the WatsApp group. 

One first quick question - Does Flo Tools with KM eat up a bit of memory when they are running alongside PT as my MacBook Pro only has 8GB of Ram?  

I had some strange things happening last night when trying to see what was going on with FT, KM and PT, I had some alerts about low memory pop up a few times and I closed all programmes apart from PT, KM and EU that was running in the background, did a couple of re boots of my MacBook which did seem to stop the low memory alerts popping up. 

When I did launch PT and when FT kicked in I did get an audio alerts to say that ‘I needed to check that in VO utilities that the tick box had to be ticked to allow VO to access programmes on my Mac’, very strange as I have never unticked this tick box in VO. 

I checked to see if any system alerts were running as you suggested but nothing apart from one for ‘Applications running in KM.  Which I don’t think is actually a pop up just something that is running in the background.  

Had another go with PT and FT in the Edit window but still could not get it to work. 

Decided to leave it for the night and sleep on it and have another go this morning. 

So this morning started again, booting up my MacBook, etc. 

Still not able to get FT to work in the Edit window. 

Decided to launch the FT installer again just in case something was missing from the install.  The install launched all OK.  When Launching PT again, I had a FT audio alert about the VO tick box again for allowing VO to access programmes on my Mac, went into VO utilities, tick box as usual was ticked to allow VO to access programmes on my Mac, decided to un tick it and then re tick it just in case. 

When I got into PT I went through the same procedure that you did in your audio demo.  In your demo it sounded like when you were on the level metre before activating FT inspector that the level was read out automatically when you were playing the track.  I did not initially get any level metre reading out with VO, but when I used  VO and the arrow keys VO did read out the levels, not sure if that was what you were doing or whether the levels were being read out automatically when you were on the level metre. 

Stopped interacting with the track, turned the inspector on and did the same as you did in your demo but still no FT read out when inspector was on and pressing ‘L’. 

So I decided to go into the Mix window to check to see if FT was reading out the level metres in the Mix window and yes all seemed to be fine in the Mix window like before.  

Now this is the strange bit as when I went back into the Edit window and did as before I was now able to get FT to read out the level metre readings with inspector on and pressing ‘L’, etc. 

I then decided to exit out of PT shut down my MacBook and re boot and try this all again to see if wen I am in PT and first go to the Mix window and then into the Edit window will FT work again. 

Yep and surprise, surprise it did work again but only in the Edit window if i go into the Mix window first and then back into the Edit window. 

All very strange!

I did notice in your demo that when you went from the bottom of the Edit window and did a read to the left that you went straight from the 50 to the ’track list show / hide’ button and currently in the Edit window of PT on my MacBook I go from 50 and then there are buttons for  ’show / hide clip list’, ’show / hide docked midi editor’ and then ’show / hide track list’, not sure if this has any affect on the issue.

Not totally sure if or how to remove those extra buttons and whether they might be affecting things but might be worth me having a look. 

not sure if it might be a memory / processor issue but I would have not thought that FT would be using up quite so much processor / memory just to read out the metre levels but maybe with having KM running it is using more processor and memory when performing tasks but the Mix / Edit window thing as above would rule that out maybe. 

Cheers 

Toby

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/A592986C-41D2-4998-9422-FD75888FC293%40gmail.com.

[Slau Halatyn]

Hi Toby,
There's a lot to cover here. Inserting comments within text below.

On Apr 22, 2020, at 6:38 AM, Toby Davey <tobyda...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Slau,

> Thought it would be easier writing an email rather than a long voice message in the WatsApp group.
> One first quick question - Does Flo Tools with KM eat up a bit of memory when they are running alongside PT as my MacBook Pro only has 8GB of Ram?

Toby, I believe the required memory is 16 GB so 8 gB is most definitely under-powered as far as Avid is concerned.

> I had some strange things happening last night when trying to see what was going on with FT, KM and PT, I had some alerts about low memory pop up a few times and I closed all programmes apart from PT, KM and EU that was running in the background, did a couple of re boots of my MacBook which did seem to stop the low memory alerts popping up.
> When I did launch PT and when FT kicked in I did get an audio alerts to say that ‘I needed to check that in VO utilities that the tick box had to be ticked to allow VO to access programmes on my Mac’, very strange as I have never unticked this tick box in VO.

Not sure which operating system you're running but it was an issue under High Sierra that the checkbox for controlling VoiceOver with AppleScript had to be unchecked then checked again and then rebooted or something to that effect. I skipped High Sierra altogether.

> I checked to see if any system alerts were running as you suggested but nothing apart from one for ‘Applications running in KM. Which I don’t think is actually a pop up just something that is running in the background.

I have no idea what you mean by 14 applications running in Keyboard Maestro. Keyboard Maestro doesn't run applications. If you meant 14 macros running, that sounds strange to me. Not sure what you're looking at.

> Had another go with PT and FT in the Edit window but still could not get it to work.
> Decided to leave it for the night and sleep on it and have another go this morning.
> So this morning started again, booting up my MacBook, etc.
> Still not able to get FT to work in the Edit window.
> Decided to launch the FT installer again just in case something was missing from the install. The install launched all OK. When Launching PT again, I had a FT audio alert about the VO tick box again for allowing VO to access programmes on my Mac, went into VO utilities, tick box as usual was ticked to allow VO to access programmes on my Mac, decided to un tick it and then re tick it just in case.
> When I got into PT I went through the same procedure that you did in your audio demo. In your demo it sounded like when you were on the level metre before activating FT inspector that the level was read out automatically when you were playing the track. I did not initially get any level metre reading out with VO, but when I used VO and the arrow keys VO did read out the levels, not sure if that was what you were doing or whether the levels were being read out automatically when you were on the level metre.

I was moving right then moving back. Eventually, I was just pressing VO f3 to read the contents of the VoiceOver cursor while focused on the level meter.

> Stopped interacting with the track, turned the inspector on and did the same as you did in your demo but still no FT read out when inspector was on and pressing ‘L’.
> So I decided to go into the Mix window to check to see if FT was reading out the level metres in the Mix window and yes all seemed to be fine in the Mix window like before.
> Now this is the strange bit as when I went back into the Edit window and did as before I was now able to get FT to read out the level metre readings with inspector on and pressing ‘L’, etc.
> I then decided to exit out of PT shut down my MacBook and re boot and try this all again to see if wen I am in PT and first go to the Mix window and then into the Edit window will FT work again.
> Yep and surprise, surprise it did work again but only in the Edit window if i go into the Mix window first and then back into the Edit window.
> All very strange!

I'll agree that it's strange since it works in both places for me.

> I did notice in your demo that when you went from the bottom of the Edit window and did a read to the left that you went straight from the 50 to the ’track list show / hide’ button and currently in the Edit window of PT on my MacBook I go from 50 and then there are buttons for ’show / hide clip list’, ’show / hide docked midi editor’ and then ’show / hide track list’, not sure if this has any affect on the issue.
> Not totally sure if or how to remove those extra buttons and whether they might be affecting things but might be worth me having a look.

Correction: I did not go straight from the bottom right to the Track List Show/Hide button. I did pass the clips List and Docked MIDI Editor buttons. It probably happened very quickly but they're visible. They can't be hidden. They are always there as a method of showing and hiding the respective tables.

> not sure if it might be a memory / processor issue but I would have not thought that FT would be using up quite so much processor / memory just to read out the metre levels but maybe with having KM running it is using more processor and memory when performing tasks but the Mix / Edit window thing as above would rule that out maybe.

Flo Tools takes up virtually no processing power. Keyboard Maestro, the same. I don't know why you're getting CPU overload but I'd say the 8 GB of rAM is the first suspect. Lastly, I'd say that it's probably not worth worrying about using Flo Tools to check levels in the Edit window. Levels are something you'd normally worry about while tracking or mixing which you'd do in the Mix window anyway. I understand your wanting to figure it out for the sake of simply knowing what's going on and I'm happy to try and troubleshoot it in real time this afternoon if you'd like. Contact me directly and we'll figure out a mutually convenient time window.

Cheers,
Slau

[Toby Davey]

Hi Slau,
Again thanks for all your help.
Yep I know 8GB of RAM is low in Avid's terms for PT but for what I am doing i.e. not making music it is probably fine until I end up with over 20 tracks!
Sorry the ‘one for’ did not mean ’14’ but one item in system dialogues for KM applications. i should have expalined it better.
I am running the most up-to-date version of Catalina on my Mac.
Thanks for clarifying the items on your Edit window in the demo - just trying to rule out things just in case as it sounded like your Edit window was different to mine.
As you say the reading out of level metres is more important in the Mix window. So happy to use my sort of work around if I need to read the levels in the Edit window for now.
Thanks for the offer of a call to do a walk through but I think for the moment I will save a call for another time as I suspect it might be something related to available memory.
If I get lucky and win the Lottery and upgrade my Mac to a higher spec model with much more RAM I will find out for sure whether it is a memory issue.
As always thanks for your kind help.
Cheers
Toby

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group.
> To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/ptaccess/N-x6rNVjaNI/unsubscribe.
> To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to ptaccess+u...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/B434173C-7AC3-4794-A034-3A905F535223%40gmail.com.

[Chi Kim]

Keyboard Maestro Engine consumes only about 60mb, so it shouldn't hardly impact your memory.

You can check in your activity monitor.

Go to Applications, Utilities, Activity monitor

Then choose memory view tab from toolbar.

From there you can also find out what's hogging your memory.

Chi

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/82319AA5-349B-4404-A142-AE5B756B4428%40gmail.com.

[Devin Oxman]

Count me in on that as well
Devin

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/735FC582-23CF-4851-814D-FC3B511E4228%40gmail.com.

[Matt Diemert]

Just an for the record,
running 2 older imac's with 8Gb of ram here with latest pt blotools and km, with a complete suite of ua plugs, and a bunch others, have probably had one or two cpu over loads within the past year, and typically happened on sessions of 80 or more tracks.
So, while I agree that 8Gb is less than ideal, I'd be surprised if that's the exact culprit here.. Best:
Matt


Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 22, 2020, at 6:13 PM, Devin Oxman <devin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Count me in on that as well

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/C24C9F67-4772-4600-88E3-E8D369F2333E%40gmail.com.

[Dammie Onafeko]

Hey guys:

I think it's easy to join if I'm not wrong. Just search for ProTools
in your Whattsapp, and once you're in it. Try it and see what happens.
I'll check the other way that I'm thinking, which is from the google
group's web page.

Best,

Dammie

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Pro Tools Accessibility" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to ptaccess+u...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/cdffdd3d-a023-84a4-5d4e-478ca24da2bc%40gmail.com.
>

[John Gunn]

This might have been covered but did you maximize both edit and mix windows?

> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ptaccess+u...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/3A6B8DD6-F34C-439A-A3E0-52542AC998C9%40gmail.com.
>

[Ronald J. Glaser]

I also, would like to join the ‎WhatsApp group for ProTools.

God Bless You!

> On Apr 22, 2020, at 7:32 PM, Matt Diemert <mcdi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just an for the record,

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptaccess/323BBA64-DD3F-490B-A9D0-2E4283CE8543%40gmail.com.