manual/include/add-new-notes.html

<h2>Adding new notes</h2>
<p>
  In general, you will probably do most MIDI editing with the mouse in object
  mode. This allows you to select notes, copy, move or delete them and alter
  their properties (see below). But at some point, you're going to want to
  <em>add</em> notes to a MIDI region using the mouse, and if they are to be
  anything other than a fixed length, this means dragging with the mouse.
  Since this would normally be a selection operation if the mouse is in object
  mode, there needs to be some way for you to tell Ardour that you are trying
  to <dfn>draw</dfn> new notes within a MIDI region. Ardour provides two ways
  do this. One is to leave the mouse in object mode and
  <kbd class="mouse mod1">Left</kbd>-drag. The other, useful if you plan to
  enter a lot of notes for a while, is to switch the mouse into
  <kbd class="menu">Draw Notes</kbd> mode, which will now interpret any drags
  and clicks as requests to add a new note. For obvious reasons, you cannot
  use Draw Notes mode while using region-level editing.
</p>

<p>So, to summarize:</p>
<dl class="wide-table">
  <dt>Selecting, moving, copying, trimming, deleting <em>regions</em></dt>
  <dd>
    leave <kbd class="menu">Note Level Editing</kbd> disabled, use object,
    range or other mouse modes
  </dd>
  <dt>Selecting, moving, copying trimming, deleting <em>notes</em></dt>
  <dd>enable <kbd class="menu">Note Level Editing</kbd>and use mouse object mode</dd>
  <dt>Adding new notes</dt>
  <dd>
    enable "Note Level Editing" and then either
    <ul>
      <li>use mouse object mode and <kbd class="mouse mod1">Left</kbd>-drag,
      or</li>
      <li>use mouse draw mode.</li>
    </ul>
  </dd>
</dl>
<p>
  Note that is also a
  <a href="@@step-entry">a step entry editor</a>
  allowing you to enter notes from a virtual keyboard and lots more besides.
</p>