Pattern Follow Mode

(off) / (on).

Renoise uses two methods to perform positioning and monitoring the pattern cursor.
This is called the Follow Mode.
The Follow Mode enables you to trigger various effects attached to each row and having them being realtime updated when you scroll up and down through the pattern with your cursor-keys.
Also the pattern scrolls along if the song or pattern is being played.
If Follow Mode is off, the key-cursor remains at the row it is.
Follow Mode also takes care that you can record your note-data in polyphonic mode (in combination with Chord mode).

So curves in the Automation section will be followed as well as the play-bar that follows the cursor.

Once you turn off Follow Mode, the play-bar will remain at the last played / monitored position if you move your pattern cursor up/down.

And in the Automation window you will see a yellow marker that remains at the position of the play-bar.

This yellow marker in the automation window, also appears if you set a value manually in the effect column for the effect and will remain there until you not only have removed the value from the Pattern Effect column, but also have manually reset the corresponding slider value.

Now for the html document readers the animations for clarity:

Follow mode on

Follow mode off

The Pattern Follow Mode will take care that inserted effect commands will be executed on-demand when the Edit Step will advance the cursor to the next row.
This also means that if you would be changing effect-parameters of certain DSP / VST’s and you have a value entered upon that row, and you would change the effectnumber (x) (effect comand structure: xyzz x = effectnummber from 0 to f, y is parameter number from 0 to f zz is value), you might change a value of a parameter that you actually didn’t wanted to change. So in these cases it’s wise to turn off pattern mode or set the Edit Step to 0 ([lctrl]-[0]) before making such changes.