Re: [Audacity-quality] Fw: Dropdown menu for the vertical ruler in waveform tracks

[Paul L. <pau...@gm...>]

Thanks for trying this!  inline answers.

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 12:00 PM, Peter Sampson <pet...@ya...>
wrote:

> RESEND - as this didn't seem to get delivered
> apologies if you get it twice
>
> Peter.
>
> Peter Sampson
> Tel: +44 (0)1625 524 780
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> *From:* Peter Sampson <pet...@ya...>
> *To:* Audacity Quality <aud...@li...>; Paul
> Licameli <pau...@gm...>
> *Cc:* Peter Sampson <pet...@ya...>
> *Sent:* Friday, July 31, 2015 2:14 PM
> *Subject:* Dropdown menu for the vertical ruler in waveform tracks
>
> Having the chance at last today to try some of Paul's latest changes
> (and thanks and well done to Gale for finally get the wx3 Windows build
> done and posted) I must say that I am rather taken with this new dropdown
> menu available on right-click in the vertical ruler.
>
> 1) For a start, as Paul says, may folk are these days used to
> right-clicking
> to get a dropdown/popup menu, it's quite common usage in apps.
>

As I have been saying.  But another convention (as I see in Gmail's Inbox
for instance) is that mouse-over causes a down-pointing arrow to appear,
which is activated by left-click.

This could be done, with more work.


>
> 2) I was one of those folk who early on stumbled into the bear-trap of
> accidentally
> clicking on the vertical ruler - wondering why my view had changed - and
> worse,
> having no ide of how to get my "proper" view back - and I know from past
> posts on
> the forum and watching Mrs S. struggle that I am not alone in this..  The
> dropdown
> menu makes it all clearer with its options and provides a discoverable way
> to get
> back to default "proper" view with its "Zoom to fit".
>

Do you notice that I also use a right-hand column that tells you "zoom to
fit" can also be done by shift-right-click?  Though Leland says this
generates warnings from wxWidgets that those strings don't make sense as
accelerator keys.


>
> 3) This means that I am happy to support the old use of right-click in the
> vertical
> ruler being replace by this new usage for the dropdown menu.  I think that
> it will
> lead to greater "discoverability.
>
> (Aside: I'm one of those that thinks we should have more right-click
> dropdowns
> in Audacity e.g. the waveform and the TCP for starters.)
>

Should be easy to do in TCP.

For the waveform, I'd like it but I am not sure how the menu items should
be organized.  That's a future project for somebody.


>
>

>
> I do have a couple of small misgivings
>
> a) Nomenclature:  I think the three "Zoom ..."  commands could easily be
> confused
> with the horizontal zoom commands - so I would prefer them to say
> "Vertical Zoom ..."
> for the avoidance of doubt and confusion.
>
> b) When hovering over the Vertical Ruler the cursor changes to the
> magnifying glass
> to indicate zoom - but the right-click no longer is a (pure) zoom
> function.  So either
> we should change the hover cursor - or add some hover-text help - or even
> both.
>

But the cursor gives you the correct hint about what left-click will do.
It even changes from magnifier plus to minus if you press Shift.  Isn't it
your expectation that cursor changes hint about left-mouse button actions?


>
> c) I find it very disconcerting that the Linear/Logarithmic radio button
> in the dropdown
> menu applies to the channel and not the track, the stereo pair.  Perhaps
> I'm being
> fuddy-duddy here but I really don't think you should mix views like this
> in the same track.
> And note that the 3 zooms apply to the stereo track and not a particular
> channel.
>

Now that is just a mistake on my part.


>
> Cheers,
> Peter.
>
>
> Peter Sampson
> Tel: +44 (0)1625 524 780
>
>
>