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Tracktion Manual
Chapter 1 - Installing and Running Tracktion
Installation
When you download and run the latest Tracktion installer (from the downloads page), it'll create a desktop shortcut to run the program, and also a Tracktion group in the start menu. Running it should produce a big grey window that goes through some start-up tasks, and then you'll be left wondering...
What do all these things on the screen do?
Tracktion has 3 main screens - the projects screen, edit screen, and settings screen; to swap between pages, you can click on the tabs at the top of the screen. When it first starts up, it'll show the projects page (and there won't be an edit screen, as you haven't yet opened an edit). More details on each of these screens are covered later.
The most important thing to remember when using Tracktion is that for most operations, you select something you're interested in by clicking on it, and this makes its properties appear in the properties panel (along the bottom of the screen) - which you can then edit. This applies whatever you're selecting - anything from a filter to an audio device, and in general the objects that are selected will be highlighted in red (or with a red outline or some other kind of appropriate colouring).
Using pop-up help and rollover tool-tips
Moving the mouse cursor over most of the on-screen objects will display a brief one-line tool-tip at the top-right of the screen, very handy for explaining roughly what it all does.
For more in-depth help about particular items, pop-up help (which is turned on by default) covers your screen with big pop-up windows full of help notes about the things you move over. Although very useful for learning, this can get in the way when actually working, so it can be turned off by a menu option accessed by the help button (bottom-left of the screen). There's also a 'compromise' option on this menu, where it'll only pop up if you keep the mouse still for a few seconds, so it's there if you need it, but shouldn't be quite so intrusive.
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