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Why is real estate such a good investment? Because land is the only thing they're not making more of. The same holds true for screen real estate, or the amount of space you have available on your computer monitor. While you can increase your screen real estate by using multiple monitors, if you're like most of us, you have only a single screen at your disposal, and this screen is capable of displaying only a limited number of windows at any one time. Juggling editing windows is a fact of life in Logic, so let's explore a few basic window-management techniques. Making Windows ActiveThe active window is the window that's ready to receive input from the mouse or keyboardit's the one you are going to interact with. NOTE The active window is not necessarily the top window. Logic uses floating windows to keep important windows on the surface at all times. The Transport window is an example of a floating window, as is a plug-in window.
Using Floating WindowsFloating windows always remain above other windows. In previous exercises you might have noticed that the Transport window is always visible. That's because it's a floating window, and as such it cannot be hidden behind other windows (however, a floating window can be covered by another floating window). Other examples of floating windows include Logic's software instruments and plug-in windows. You can distinguish a floating window from a normal window by looking at its title bar. Normal windows have a thicker title bar with rounded corners, while floating windows have a thinner title bar with square corners. Incidentally, floating windows are not unique to Logic. For example, Adobe Photoshop's palettes are floating windows, and Microsoft Word's toolbars are also floating windowsin fact, any window that can't be hidden under other windows is a floating window, regardless of the software program. NOTE Another interesting fact about floating windows is that switching to a different application causes them to disappear, while the normal document windows remain visible. While Logic is not unique in its use of floating windows, it does have one special feature not found in most other programs: Logic lets you, the user, turn any window into a floating window. Any window at all! For example, if you're making important edits in the Matrix Editor and you want to ensure that the window doesn't get lost behind others, hold down the Option key while you open the window. Let's practice making floating windows and moving them around.
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