+++
title = "Conventions"
description = "Conventions used in this Ardour tutorial"
chapter = false
weight = 1
#pre = "<b>1. </b>"
+++

Below are some basic conventions we have adopted in this manual.

## Mouse Clicks

Ardour requires a two-button mouse to run (or the emulation of that on
your system in some other way). A **click** is assumed to be a left
button mouse click. A **right-click** refers to the right-hand button on
the mouse. A **Ctrl**, **Cmd** or **Apple** key pressed with a mouse
click is not the same and may in fact give a different result.

## Key Names & Combinations

The names of keys to be pressed are written in quotation marks and
italicised, like this:

**Ctrl**, **Return**, **Backspace**, **R**

Key combinations are written like this:

**Ctrl + X**

or

**Apple + X**

## Menu Navigation

Many functions are accessible in Ardour by clicking on the various menu
items. Additionally, you may need to access functions through the menus
of macOS, Ubuntu or other Linux distributions. To illustrate this, we use
two conventions: the first is illustration via screenshots (images), and
the second is through a syntax like this :

`View > Zoom > Zoom to Session`

The above example is shorthand for "first click on the _View_ menu, then
choose the _Zoom_ item of the list, and then click on _Zoom to Session_".

## Glossary Words

This tutorial does not assume any previous knowledge of computers or
audio editing, so terms which might be unfamiliar to the general reader
are capitalized throughout this manual, and are listed in **boldface**
the first time they are used in a chapter. Glossary words are also
defined in-line the first time they occur in the manual, and are
included in the glossary at the end of this tutorial.