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Chapter 5 The Environment 185
Text
Text faders function like Numerical faders, but can display text for each of the 128
possible MIDI values (0 to 127). Double-clicking on the surface of a text fader opens the
text fader window.
Clicking on a position in this window will cause the corresponding fader value to be
sent. (This is similar to selecting programs by name in the multi-instrument window).
Double-click on a position in this window to type in the desired text. By default (when
you create a text style fader), the text positions contain numerical values. You can use
this feature to create numerical style faders with colored backgrounds.
Clipboard Functions
The pull-down menu located at the top right of the text fader window provides cut,
copy, and paste Clipboard functions. You can use these facilities to transfer the entire
list of names to a text editor, for more convenient editing. Note that empty lines (and
lines that only contain spaces) are ignored. If you want to insert blank positions in the
list, use Option–Space bar.
Behave as Menu
Check the Behave as menu box to make the text fader act like a pull-down menu. When
this box is unchecked, the text fader acts like a scrolling menu.
Text Fader Range
A text fader only allows the entry of as many names defined by its range. To clarify, if
you set a text style fader’s range to 0, 1 you can only enter two values. You should
always set the minimum necessary range for a text fader, as this saves memory. In any
case, remember that the first name corresponds to the lowest value in the range (not
necessarily 0) and the last name corresponds to the highest value (not necessarily 127).
If you force a text fader to a value outside its range (with MIDI input) it will display “---”
for values below its range and “+++” for values above. The one exception is when the
fader’s range is 0, 1 in which case all values above 1 will display the name for value 1.