Please forgive me if this 'concept' of control has been covered elsewhere, I'm slowly working through all the forum entries but it takes time!
In browsing through the forum I noticed that one of the problems that rears it's head frequently is the realtime need to access the huge number of patches present on modern hardware, sometimes 1000's. There are probably other areas of programable parameters that have a huge number of options suited to the twiddling of just one control as well.
My idea starts with a single 'LOCK' button that is held while another control is selected. Once the control is selected, the LOCK button is released. All focus is now locked to the selected control (no other items function other than items I subsequently introduce now). The idea of a LOCK button is to freeze other controls to avoid accidentally changing them in a densely populated screen and to permit the whole screen to be used for 'swiping'.
A new small panel would be required that allows one finger to select one of four (or more/less) zones that relate to digits 1, 2, 3 & 4. Another finger is used to select a number (by up/down swipe) between 0 - 9999. This number becomes the selected controls setting once the LOCK button is pressed for a second time (and all other controls subsequently regain their function). The number is then referenced to a user defined table that outputs the appropriate sysex or other data to produce the required control function.
An alternative (faster) method of number selection could be a velocity related ''touch strip' across the bottom of the screen that increases it's value with swipes to the right and decreases with swipes to the left. The faster you move the greater the increment (or decrement), slower movements allow for fine tuning and eventual selection of a value. This option also allows for any number (unlimited digits) to be selected within the parameters of the selected control.
To keep associated tables as short as possible the specification should allow for any number of entries from 1 up to the maximum lookup value (say 5 patches now, add another 100 or so in a couple of weeks time followed by more etc., etc.)
An additional item required would be an 'LCD panel' (mentioned in previous suggestion) to display the the current/selected value of the control, and function etc.
A real benefit of a control with such a huge range of settings is that (for use in a gig for instance) tables referencing wholly unrelated sysex strings could be created thereby cutting down on the number of controls required.
Apologies to all if none of this makes sense and for covering ground that's possibly already been exhausted by others!
