Re: [Audacity-quality] Shipped Nyquist plug-ins action and name consistency

[Gale A. <ga...@au...>]

| From Steve the Fiddle <ste...@gm...> 
| Sat, 28 Jul 2012 22:05:28 +0100
| Subject: [Audacity-quality] Shipped Nyquist plug-ins action and name consistency
> On 28 July 2012 20:00, Gale Andrews <ga...@au...> wrote:
> >
> > Audacity built-in effects that have a dialogue usually show the same
> > text (the name of the effect and an ellipsis) both in the Effect menu
> > and when applying the effect.
> >
> > Nyquist plug-ins normally have different text (usually much longer)
> > when applying the effect, including the word "Applying" or
> > "Processing".  I was reminded of this in the Delay effect where
> > there is a proposal to change "Performing" to "Applying" in the
> > text when applying the effect.
> >
> > Since we are trying to make shipped Nyquist plug-ins more consistent
> > with built-in effects (by removing ;info line text and putting units in
> > circular brackets), shouldn't we make "action" the same as "name"
> > in Nyquist effects (as and when we update plug-ins) so that the
> > text matches in the menu and when applying the effect?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Gale
> 
> You're quite correct that there is inconsistency (which I'd not
> noticed previously) though I'm not sure how much it matters.
> 
> With the shipped effects we currently have:
> 
> Amplifying
> Processing Auto Duck...
> Boosting Bass Frequencies
> Changing Pitch
> Changing Speed
> Changing Tempo
> Removing clicks and pops...
> Applying Dynamic Range Compression...
> Performing Echo
> Performing Equalization
> Fading In
> Fading Out
> Inverting
> Applying Leveller...
> Removing Noise
> Applying Nyquist Effect...
> Stretching with Paulstretch
> Applying Phaser
> Repairing damaged audio
> (no message visible for "Repeat")
> Reversing
> Changing Tempo/Pitch
> Truncating Silence...
> Applying Wahwah
> 
> Nyquist Effects:
> 
> Reconstructing clips...
> Cross-Fading In...
> Cross-Fading Out...
> Performing Delay Effect... (or with the proposed new version: Applying
> Delay Effect...)
> Performing High Pass Filter...
> Performing Low Pass Filter...
> Performing Notch Filter...
> Applying Tremolo...
> Removing vocals or other center-panned audio...
> Processing Vocoder...
> 
> 
> There is a little more consistency with generate effects.
> 
> The built-in generators say:
> Generating <Name>
> 
> The Nyquist generators say:
> Generating <Name>...
> 
> 
> In the Analyze menu we have:
> 
> Drawing Spectrum
> Detecting clipping
> 
> Nyquist Analyze plug-ins:
> 
> Analyzing absolutely nothing...
> Finding beats...
> Adding equally-spaced labels to the label track...
> Analyzing...
> Finding silence...
> Finding sound...
> 
> 
> Overall there is greater consistency with the Nyquist plug-ins.
> Apart from the Analyze plug-ins and "Volcal Remover", all Nyquist
> plug-ins are capitalised and have three dots.
> There is little consistency for the built-in effects in either
> capitalisation or the use of ellipsis.
> 
> I think that it would certainly be worth changing the Vocal Remover
> dialogue when the effect is updated as it is much longer than any of
> the others and in sentence case.
> 
> I'm not sure about the uses of ellipsis, but as there is 100%
> consistency among the Nyquist effects I see little reason to remove
> them.

Thanks for the survey. Yes it does show more inconsistency
with built-in effects than Nyquist.

I've had several e-mails from users lately pointing out these sort 
of interface inconsistencies, and how "unprofessional" and
"hodge-podge" it looks (to them), so I thought it was worth a 
mention. 

According to:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa974176.aspx#punctuation

ellipses should always "indicate that a task is in progress (for 
example, "Searching...")". So I agree no need to remove the 
ellipses from Nyquist. 


> The vast majority are capitalised, so that would seem to be a
> reasonable recommendation.

According to: 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa974176.aspx#capitalization

"Use title-style capitalization for titles, sentence-style capitalization
for all other UI elements". But where the action refers to the name 
of the effect I assume it reasonable to capitalise.  

If we are only alluding to the name of the effect, as in: 

   "Changing Pitch" rather than  "Applying Change Pitch"

   "Removing vocals" rather than "Applying Vocal Remover" 

then I would guess capitalising is still possibly "better". So we 
should have "Removing Vocals or other Center-Panned Audio..."
but as that is so long, "Removing Vocals..." would be better 
(when we update).     


> The main point of the text is to say briefly what is happening, so
> phrases such as "Finding Silence...", "Applying Delay Effect..." or
> "Changing Speed" all seem reasonable to me.

Yes, but what does the label really add to what the title bar of 
the progress dialogue says? Once you have the label it comes 
at the price of inconsistency between "Applying", "Performing",
"Processing" or "doing whatever this effect is", and between 
the label having ellipsis as well as the title or not.     

 
> In the specific case of the delay effect I think that "Applying Delay
> Effect.." is a more accurate than just "Applying Delay..." as it is
> not just "delaying" the sound, but applying a multiple delay effect,
> possibly with pitch/speed change.

By that reckoning we should have "Processing Vocoder Effect..." 
too. 

If we want to agree for future Nyquist plug-in updates between
"Applying", "Performing" or "Processing" I certainly prefer 
"Applying" as you suggest for Delay. 

 
 

Gale