Global commands

The main menu bar, at the top of the screen, provides several pull-down menus which are available at all times while Doggiebox is the active application. This section enumerates the commands listed in all of the menus and describes what they do, and also details the various settings which you can control via Preferences.

Application menu

The application menu, beside the Apple menu and labeled with the Doggiebox title, contains several program-wide commands.

About Doggiebox... brings up an information window containing some credits and other interesting information, including the current build and version numbers.

Preferences... opens the global preferences dialog, which is discussed in the following section.

Services is a sub-menu of various functions offered by other applications installed on your computer. Currently, Doggiebox does not take meaningful advantage of any such services.

Hide Doggiebox hides all windows from the screen and dims the Doggiebox application icon in the dock.

Hide Others hides all windows that belong to other applications, leaving only Doggiebox windows visible on the screen.

Show All reveals windows of all applications which might have been previously hidden.

Quit Doggiebox terminates the application, first prompting you to save any recent changes to open documents if necessary.

File menu

The File menu contains commands which pertain to general document-related tasks.

New Song creates a new, empty song document. You will be prompted for some initial settings, such as the song name and drum kit to use. See creating a new song for details.

New Drum Kit creates a new, empty drum kit file. See the drum kit document section.

Open... allows you to choose an existing song or drum kit file to open in the appropriate editor. Open Recent lists the last several recently-used Doggiebox documents for quick access.

Close shuts the current song or drum kit file, prompting you to commit unsaved changes first.

Save commits any unsaved changes in the current song or drum kit file to disk. Save As... first prompts you for a new filename in which to save a copy of the current file.

Revert discards any recent unsaved changes, and re-loads the last saved version of the current song or drum kit file from disk.

Export Song... saves the current song to disk as a full raw audio file, suitable for using with other applications such as ProTools. See Exporting the Audio for details. Export Selected Bars... does similarly, but only for the current selection if there is one.

Song Options... opens a dialog sheet allowing you to change various attributes of the current song file. See changing song options for details.

Edit menu

The Edit menu contains commands which pertain to making and tracking changes in the current document.

Undo reverses the most recent destructive editing operation. Redo re-instates the change. Please note: undo and redo are not yet fully implemented for all editing operations!

Cut removes the current selection (highlighted text, group of patterns, etc.) and places it on the pasteboard. Copy places the current selection on the pasteboard without first removing it from the document. Paste transfers the current pasteboard contents, if applicable, into the document at the insertion point. Clear removes the selection from the document without altering the current contents of the pasteboard.

Select All highlights everything in the current context (e.g. text in a text field, or bars in the pattern editor) for subsequent editing operations. Select None does the opposite.

Pattern menu

The Pattern menu contains commands which pertain to creating and modifying bars in the current song.

Insert Bars... raises a dialog sheet, prompting you for information to insert new, empty bars into the song at the insertion point. See tempo and time signatures for details. Insert Bars Again re-performs the same operation, using the most recent paramaters, without first presenting the dialog.

Modify Tempo/Time... presents a dialog sheet similar to Insert Bars, allowing you to adjust the tempo and time signature for the currently selected bar (or bars) in the pattern editor. See tempo and time signatures for details. Double-clicking in the header area of a bar in the pattern editor also invokes this command.

Expand zooms in on the song, revealing finer beat subdivisions on a power-of-two basis (e.g. change from showing an 8th-note to a 16th-note resolution). Collapse zooms out.

Play Song begins playback of the current song from its beginning (same as clicking the Play Song button in the document window), and changes to Stop Playing while playback is in progress. Play Selected Bars will play only the current selection if there is one.

Window and Help menus

The Window menu contains commands useful for managning open user interface windows.

Minimize iconifies the front-most document window into the Dock.

Bring All to Front moves all Doggiebox windows to the top layer of the screen.

Open document windows are also individually listed; choosing one will bring it to the front.

The Help menu contains general reference tools.

Doggiebox User's Guide loads this manual in a new window for convenient reference.

Doggiebox Web Site jumps to www.Doggiebox.com in your preferred web browser.