manual/_manual/01_welcome-to-ardour/02_about-ardour-documentation.html

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layout: default
title: About Ardour documentation
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<h2>Conventions Used In This Manual</h2>
<p>
This section covers some of the typographical and language conventions 
used in this manual.
</p>

<h3>Keyboards and Modifiers</h3>
<p>
Keyboard bindings are shown like this: <kbd>s</kbd> or <kbd class="mod1">x</kbd>. 
<kbd>Ctrl x</kbd> means "press the <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> key, keep it pressed and then also 
press the <kbd>x</kbd> key. You may also see key combinations such as 
<kbd class="mod12">e</kbd>, which mean that you should press the <kbd
class="mod1">&nbsp;</kbd> key, then while keeping it pressed also press the 
<kbd class="mod2">&nbsp;</kbd> key and then while
keeping them both pressed, finally press the <kbd>e</kbd> key.</p>
<p>
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.
</p>

<h3>Menu Items</h3>
<p>
Menu items are indicated like this:<br />
<kbd class="menu">Top &gt; Next &gt; Deeper</kbd>. Each "&gt;"-separated item
indicates one level of a nested (sub-)menu.
</p>

<h3>Preference/Dialog Options</h3>
<p>
Choices in various dialogs, notably the Preferences and Properties dialog, are 
indicated like this:<br />
<kbd class="option">Edit &gt; Preferences &gt; Audio &gt; Some Option</kbd>. 
Each successive item indicates either a (sub-) menu or a tabbed dialog
navigation. The final item is the one to choose or select.
</p>
<p>
If you are requested to deselect an option, you will see something like
this:<br />
<kbd class="optoff">Edit &gt; Preferences &gt; Audio &gt; Some other
Option</kbd>.
</p>


<h3>Notes</h3>
<p class="note">
Important notes about things that might not otherwise be obvious are shown in this
format.
</p>

<h3>Warnings</h3>
<p class="warning">
Hairy issues that might cause things to go wrong, lose data, or impair sound
quality is displayed in this way.
</p>


<h3>Mouse Buttons</h3>
<p>
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.
</p>

<h4>Mouse click modifiers</h4>
<p>
Many editing functions are performed by clicking the mouse while holding a
modifier key, for example <kbd class="mouse mod1">Left</kbd>.

</p>
<h4>"Context-click"</h4>
<p>Many times the term <kbd class="mouse">context-click</kbd> is used to indicate 
that you should (typically) right-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.
</p>

<h3>"The Pointer"</h3>
<p>
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.
</p>

<h3>Other user input</h3>
<p>
Ardour supports hardware controllers, such as banks of <kbd
class="fader">faders</kbd>, <kbd class="knob">knobs</kbd>, or <kbd
class="button">buttons</kbd>.
</p>