WhatsNewReaper7Summary_r2.pdf — page 25

REAPER 7.0: What’s New
Track Folders: Various Improvements
One way of creating folders is by dragging and dropping. You identify which track is to be the folder, which are 
to be its children, then select and drag and drop the children into the folder. 
This method can be tricky unless you are precise in your mouse movements. You might recall that in Section 
2.28 Managing Tracks we saw that dragging 
and dropping track panels up or down the track 
display can move them and park them in a new 
position. This time, however, that’s not what we 
want.
The trick is to drop the tracks inside the zone used for creating folders. The exact area and size of this drop zone 
will vary with track height and track width: as a guide, think of it as occupying roughly the vertical middle of the 
track panel. You’ll know when you’re there because the mouse cursor will display a folder (as shown above left) 
rather than a hand (as shown above right). Here’s an example.
Tracks 3 and 4 have been selected and are to be to be 
dragged up to Track 1, which is to be their folder 
container track.
As they are dragged up, shown left the mouse displays a 
hand because the cursor is too far below the vertical 
center. This would just move the tracks up the order but 
would not place them in a folder. We need to be in the 
drop zone, closer to the center, as shown in the second 
picture (above right). Notice the mouse cursor is now 
shown as a folder.
From this position we release the mouse, and the two guitar tracks are now placed inside a new folder, with 
Track 1 as the containing folder track (as shown below).
Note: You can start your drag and drop from any part of the track 
panel (apart, of course, from the controls themselves), but to place the 
tracks into a folder you must move the mouse cursor to the folder drop 
zone before releasing it.
Notice the small down pointing arrow just above the track number of 
the folder track (in this case Track 1). By default, this can be used to 
toggle the display of child tracks in the folder between normal (as 
shown by default), minimized and collapsed. Shown below is the same folder with its child tracks collapsed.
In Preferences, Appearance, Track 
Control Panel there is an option to include 
hidden in the cycle options (see right). This 
allows you to hide child tracks altogether. 
If you prefer not to use the above method for drag and drop there is another option 
available. You can go to Options, Preferences, Editing Behavior, Mouse and turn on When reordering 
tracks via drag and drop, hold shift key to control folder creation. Then click OK.
Simple drag and drop will still move tracks: holding Shift while doing so will create a folder and place adjacent 
tracks into it without any need to find the folder drop zone.
Context Menu Folder Options
Another option for moving tracks into folders can be found on 
the track panel context menu. The panel’s context menu 
includes a Move to folder command that will place a 
selection of tracks into a new or existing folder.
First, select the tracks that you wish to move into a folder, then from the right click context menu choose Move 
tracks to folder. You can then select from the list of existing folders or choose New folder track to insert the 
tracks into a new as yet unnamed folder, immediately above the first track in the selection. 
You can then name the folder track by double-clicking in its name area.
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