Re: [Audacity-quality] Labelled Audio commands (Was: Basic editing)

[Gale (A. Team) <ga...@au...>]

Vaughan wrote:
> Wow, I'm way confused by the quote levels in this -- looks like a lot 
> that's attributed to Steve by '>' indentations is actually stuff from 
> Gale that I already answered, but is not included.
I was confused too but I hope the quotes are correct in my post.

 
> But from what I get from Steve's comments at the bottom, is that the 
> "Labeled Audio" submenu is a power user feature, that cannot be easily 
> done otherwise. From my playing with it, I disagree, because I think it 
> can be done via shift-selecting audio tracks, which power users should 
> likely know before they come upon these use cases. 

You don't need to select audio tracks at all to use the feature, even
if Tracks Preferences has "Select all audio in project, if none selected" 
unchecked. The only track you must select is a label track.

If you do SHIFT-select multiple audio tracks, only those tracks will be
affected, but if you select no audio tracks, all will be affected. 

So the Labeled Audio commands are "like" the comparable commands 
elsewhere in Edit Menu, but don't act in exactly the same way - they 
can affect the "thing" you don't select, which makes me a bit 
uncomfortable with having them in the Edit Menu.

But the key point is - you can't currently select multiple labels for acting 
only on the audio of those labels. We need a way (e.g. SHIFT-clicking
in labels) to select multiple labels without selecting outside those labels. 


> (And what about my suggestion the use cases should be described 
> in the manual, rather than only the functionality?)

Agreed. We do like to do that as a general principle, and if it "fits" we
will try to say "why" before "how". I made a note on those pages to
add the use case. 


> Near term, I suggest keeping the "Labeled Audio" submenu (for the 
> not-removing-features aspect), but moving the Edit commands 
> that are typically at the top level *back* to the top level.
>
> Gale, I appreciate the work on your new wiki page, but that's a lot more 
> work and topics than we've been discussing. I'm +1, as above, on  Edit > 
> "Remove Audio or Labels" sub-menu removed (all its items are back in 
> root). 

Steve's current patch does not do that. As you point out, it leaves us 
with a "Remove Special" or some other non-standard sub-menu. 

I'm also +1 in principle in having all the "Remove Audio or Labels" items
back in root, but not for it adding another five items in the menu. We
have been there before and got complaints two or three times a week 
about it on account of the length. That is far in excess of the current 
complaint level about the Edit Menu. 


> I'm very -1 on most of the rest of it, like Region stuff being in 
> View menu -- those are about region selection, so belong in Edit,
> with Select -- that's standard.

I certainly see your point.   
 
My point about Region being in "View Menu" is that Region 
Save/Restore should restore the zoom level and timeline position 
that it had when captured.
 
To me that makes it's a hybrid/fringe item. It is not very well
understood where it is now (especially because of the "Save" word). 

I went ahead and took everything "fringe/hybrid" out of Edit Menu
as a demo of what it could look like if we did that. Personally I like
the groupings that it has under that scheme and I like the length.      

But fundamentally if we want "Remove Audio or Labels" items back
in root, other items have to be moved to other menus (or grouped
together) to keep the menu a tolerable length. Pretty much 
anything that gets us those items back with a maximum of 18 items
in Edit Menu is OK by me, but I much prefer only the 16 items we 
have now. Also I don't see the point putting off the evil day thrashing 
this out.  


> I was opposed to changes like the ones that moved standard
> top-level Edit commands to submenus. I'm opposed to putting 
> standard Edit-related commands (e.g., selection) in other menus. 
> I'm opposed to being non-standard for the interface style we're 
> using, and especially changing it dramatically. I'm very much in favor 
> of us returning to more-standard configuration -- shouldn't ever
> have been made so non-standard, imo.

On the other hand, the level of complaints we were getting before
James grouped the menus was unacceptable.

Do you think all the items/sub menu items currently in Edit are 
completely indispensable there?     



Gale 






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