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Forum: Wishes and new features

Topic: UNDO - the most BASIC feature missing from every DJ application
Seriously. How can every bloody program that's ever existed have an UNDO and DJ apps still haven't figured it out.

Accidentally bump a hotcue or the play button, destroying your beat matching and your phrasing. No worries UNDO.

Loaded a song into the wrong active deck (because you forgot to lock it or you just ignored the lock warning). No worries, UNDO

You hit the tap button and now it's buggered up your grids... UNDO

Had a complex and long effects chain that you accidentally added the wrong beat amount to UNDO


It's should be OK to make mistakes as a DJ, even live. But without UNDO so many people don't even try to get creative or do more experimental stuff.

There is not a set I play where I wouldn't kill for just a basic undo, let alone a dynamic or advanced undo.


I mean ffs it's 2023. We have AI Stems came out in 2020 and still no way to just unf*ck a train wreck mix.
 
Posted Mon 18 Sep 23 @ 9:23 pm
For the most part of what you describe, an undo is useless.
Once you make the mistake "live" (and it's heard through your speakers) there's no turning back, nor a nice way to "save it"
Better just cut off the mix, learn to deal with it (as everybody makes mistakes) and move on.
That's why every DJ application and every DJ gear (which is basically a dedicated computer these days running proprietary software) does not include an "UNDO" function.
It's one of those features that's good on paper, but doesn't work out that great in real case usage.

I agree that some parts (like the BPM Editor) could possibly use an undo function.

However for everything that has to do with your live playback sound, it's useless.
 
- grid editor
- pois editor
- scripting
- mapping editor

these options are core and doesn't have undo, that would be great and i never understand it why it works like that nowadays.
 
because it adds a layer of bloat everywhere and huge chunks of the program have to be rewritten. Restore from backup covers all those cases.
 
For the mapping editor, simply close it and select No to not save it to revert back to the last saved version
For bpm editor, click the dot and select 're-analyze' to go back to the original automatically detected grid.
Poi editor I'm not sure what kind of accidental mistakes you could make, it would only be moving a single poi back to it's place?
Scripting, I agree that a basic ctrl-z in text fields in general could probably be useful

For loading the wrong song to a deck, you could map undo_load
 
I can't understand at this point in life why CNTRL+Z doesn't exist.
It has happened to me several times that I delete (Del) a track while trying to remove another, and I can't know which one I deleted.
It's something incredibly simple to implement, yet it's incomprehensible why it's not there.
 
It does exists in a lot of places in VDJ. It was added a couple of years ago
 
@Adion and @Klaus already explained various cases where undo can be used (loading of a deck, etc) and @Adion admitted that it could be a helpful addition to the script editor, but I guess the real point is, universal undo behavior for everything doesn't really make sense for an application like this, because the desired result (live playback of mixed music), is constantly being output in realtime, rather a series of edits/states which can be held to the end to determine one particular desired output (e.g. Microsoft Word document, Adobe Photoshop image creation).

In most cases it doesn't make a lot of sense (you can't undo a mix you already played out) or is already implicitly there. Like for the cases given:

  • playlist editor
    There could potentially be an unlimited number of playlists. When do you start tracking undo (for all playlists from program start/playlist creation/when entering a playlist)? How deep should the level of undoing be? If you are accidentally deleting songs, then maybe change your keyboard mapping? (mouse based is within a context menu option - you have to focus to get there)
  • grid editor
    You could delete every anchor marker added in this editor or rescan the track (basically undo is already there)
  • pois editor
    You can delete every POI added (undo basically already there)
  • mapping editor
    You have to save the mapping before it is stored (undo with tracking state of 1 from first edit (all changes or none))