Re: [Audacity-devel] ANSI Release unable to export after update

[Steve t. F. <ste...@gm...>]

LRN wrote:
> Nevertheless, this is not the point. The point is: users will still be
> confused when they don't get AMR (greyed out or not - that's irrelevant)
> that Audacity promised them, because before FFmpeg installation Audacity
> will advertise AMR as supported (since it can't know in advance which
> formats will be supported by not-yet-installed libav*).
>   
Perhaps I misunderstood something you wrote earlier:

> This fix, coupled with previous changes i did to ExportFFmpeg.cpp
> effectively removes FFmpeg export types from the export dialog when
> FFmpeg is not available


I took that to mean that:
No FFmpeg ->No listing in Export Dialogue
FFmpeg installed -> FFmpeg options listed in Export dialogue.

Someone else suggested that the FFmpeg option could be
"greyed out" unless FFmpeg was available, and no-one has
yet said that is not possible.

I therefore assumed (probably incorrectly) that you could have
one thing displayed in the combobox if FFmpeg is installed,
and something different if it is not (yet) detected.

The same is true / not true for AMR and other codecs?

My proposal was that ALL FFmpeg export options are
greyed out (or better, greyed out and listed as "not installed"
if that is technically possible), until such time as they are
installed and detected.

For the user, before FFmpeg has been installed/detected,
they would see in the menu (without nested comboboxes)

Other uncompressed files
AIFF (Apple) signed 16 bit PCM
WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM
GSM 6.10 WAV (mobile)
MP3 Files
Ogg Vorbis Files
FLAC Files
MP2 Files  _
_(external program) _
                              _
_FFmpeg options (not installed)_
M4A (AAC) Files 
AC3 Files
AMR
WMA (version2)
_CustomFFmpeg Export_

Basically, telling the user that these options can be available,
but require an additional installation (as with the case of MP3 and Lame)

There would clearly need to be some heavy promotion of FFmpeg support
and how to get it working, just as there has been with Lame/MP3.

As I said, I'm not a programmer so how this is eventually implemented is
down to you good people. The only point I was wanting to make is that
if the user is informed that something is not installed, then they
are (1) aware that it is an option, and (2) that they must do something
to make hat option available.

At that point they will either work it out for themselves,
look to the documentation, or ask on a forum.

Steve