Navigating the Editor window is obviously a very frequent operation. Ardour sticks with a lot of the usual conventions in this regard, to allow for a quick learning. As those operations are so common, it is worth taking the time to learn most of the keyboard and mouse shortcuts in order for these to become fast and natural.

The keyboard shortcuts can, as always, be edited, so the defaults are shown here.

Scrolling

Scrolling can be done on-canvas, or with the Summary.

On Canvas

Moving the playhead outside the view may scroll the screen accordingly, so using ← or →, while not scrolling per se, will result in scrolling if Transport > Follow playhead is checked. This is also true with the Navigation Timeline, and anything that moves the Playhead.

In the Summary

Clicking and dragging in the Summary will scroll the view left and right. If the screen view is clicked (the white rectangle) and dragged, the view can also be scrolled vertically.

Additionally, on the left of the Summary, the two < and > arrows buttons allow to scroll one screen either left or right, while at the right of the Summary, the two ∧ and ∨ arrows buttons allow to scroll one screen either up or down.

Zooming

Zooming (on time) can be done on-canvas (which will always be centered around the mouse cursor), with the Summary, or with the Zoom Controls.

On Canvas

In the Summary

Resizing the screen view in the Summary (the white rectangle) changes the zoom accordingly.

With the Zoom Controls

With the Zoom Focus set, the − and + buttons will zoom out or in around this focus. The [ ] button zooms to the whole session as defined by the start and end markers.

Theses controls are bound to the keyboard − and = respectively by default.

Height of the tracks

Changing the height of the tracks results in more or less tracks on screen. This can be done on canvas, with the Summary or with the Zoom Controls.

On canvas

Using ⇓ or ⇑ while hovering over a track reduces or enhances its height, i.e. zooms on the hovered track, regardless of the selection.

The F key resizes the tracks so that only the selected one(s) are displayed. If some unselected tracks are in-between those selected tracks, their visibility will be toggled off.

In the Summary

Resizing the screen view in the Summary (the white rectangle) changes the number of tracks displayed (hence their heights) accordingly. It behaves more like a zoom as the relative height of the tracks are kept.

With the Zoom Controls

The three rightmost buttons of the Zoom Control bar, while not zoom buttons, act upon the height of the tracks:

• The first selector directly selects how many tracks are currently on screen.
• The second one reduces the height of the selected track(s). If none are selected, all the tracks are affected, while maintaining (as long as it is possible) their relative heights.
• The third one enlarges the tracks, and is the counterpart of the previous one.