Re: [Audacity-quality] Delete Undo History

[Peter S. <pet...@gm...>]

On Tue, Dec 1, 2020 at 2:43 PM Steve Fiddle <ste...@gm...>
wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, 1 Dec 2020 at 12:42, Peter Sampson <pet...@gm...>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 10:38 PM Paul Licameli <pau...@gm...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I still think it best and easiest to declare 2600 not-a-bug and put
>>> Compact back.
>>>
>>> I still insist that the complaint in 2600 does not make sense.  I do not
>>> understand why it is wrong behavior, much less "data loss" when nothing is
>>> lost if you undo but can still redo.  I think Peter alone considers it data
>>> loss.
>>>
>>
>> Then let me explain again why 2600 can represent potential "data loss" -
>> and thus why James'
>> resolution (as RM) was to disable Compact Project - at least for 3.0.0
>>
>> 1)  In the Steps to reproduce I have a simple chirp project and each
>> applied effect makes a clearly
>> visible change to the waveform - thus it is easy to spot the state being
>> reverted to, and as was QA
>> testing I was looking extremely carefully.
>>
>> In real life use editing changes to that waveform and difficult (or
>> almost impossible to spot) and thus Ed
>> the user who used Unbo after compaction could unknowingly lose data by
>> reverting to a state they did
>> not intend (and note carefully: it's not just Undo immediately after
>> Compaction, it can be Undos
>> long after compaction as mu testing showed).
>>
>>
>> 2) If the user uses Edit>Undo then they might get some clue as to what
>> might happen (depending on
>> the wordoing of what is on the History stack).
>>
>> 3) However if the uses used the Undo tool in the Edit toolbar, or the
>> shortcut Ctrl+Z, then they are offered
>> no textual clue as to what is to be actually Undone - and thus what state
>> the project might be in afterwards.
>>
>
> The big problem here appears to be user expectation.
>
> We previously received zero complaints that deleting the Undo history
> deleted the undo history, so why not go back to that terminology and rename
> "Compact" as "Delete Undo History"? We could even move it back into the
> "View History" window where it was (without problem) previously.
>

This is what we effectively had with Leland's Compact Project
implementation up to and including Audacity 3.0.0 d49a888

But then we (Bill that is) discovered edge case
*Bug 2579* <https://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2579> - Exiting
Audacity after edits and compaction results in a corrupted previously saved
project

This got "fixed" - but in the "fixing" the full clearing of the History was
compromised - leading to the weird behavior in
*Bug 2600* <https://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2600> - Compact
project followed by undo restores the last saved state.


As I stated earlier I would welcome back the Compact Project command, but
if and only if it can be fixed
in such a way as to preserve Lelands previously agreed implementation with
an empty Undo History stack
and Undo grayed out - and thus no 2600 "weird" behavior.

So if, and only if, someone wants to volunteer to do that (James or Leland
perhaps?) then let's go for that, reintroduce
Compact Project as it was at Audacity 3.0.0 d49a888 and reopen P1 Bug
#23579.

@James: what do you, as RM, think of this ?




>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Let us remember the history of this development.
>>
>> A) In Leland's original implementation of Compact Project up to and
>> including Audacity 3.0.0 d49a888
>> i) the entire History was discarded - this done to facilitate maximum
>> compaction
>> ii) the user was clearly told in the dialog that they would lose their
>> entire Undo History
>> iii) Undo was inaccessible and grayed out
>> i) The Manual tells (told) the user that they would lose their entire
>> Undo History
>> This was a nice clean, simple to understand, action
>>
>> B) Then Bill discovered the edge case of P1 Bug 2579
>> *Bug 2579* <https://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2579> - Exiting
>> Audacity after edits and compaction results in a corrupted previously saved
>> project
>> This was obviously NOT a good thing and needed to be addressed.
>>
>> C) You, Paul, then decided to fix 2579, but in a way that totally changed
>> Leland's original implementation
>> leading to the "weird" behaviors reported in Bug 2600 (and discussed
>> above).
>>
>> I would fully support the reintroduction of Compact project *provided*
>> that it adhered to the original implementation
>> that Leland discussed and agreed with us - and provided that we could
>> find a way to solve Bug 2579 without
>> changing Lelan's original implementation.  If however this is a circle
>> that cannot be squared (as you seemed to
>> suggest, Paul ,when making your changed implementation) then I would not
>> support its reinstatement.
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> OK so let's go back to basics and consider if we really need a Compact
>> Project command at all
>>
>> 1) Audacity project with the old AUP/Pile-of-Files structure aso grew the
>> size of the project's _data
>> folder as Undos were added to the History stack - and no IRL user has
>> ever noticed or complained
>> about this.  And this gets vacuumed on Exit from the project.
>>
>> 2) OK so we know from Stev's tests that AUP3 can take up even more room -
>> up to 50% more.
>> But set against that is the fact that large disks are much more common
>> and much cheaper these days.
>>
>
> I think the "cheap disk space these days" argument is flawed. The average
> amount of disk space on modern computers is considerably less than it was 5
> years ago due to SSDs replacing hdds on most laptops, and the continued
> decline in desktop / tower computers.
>

I somewhat agree - I think they kinda expect you to do all your work in
"The Cloud" (aka someone else's computer).
But as we know Audacity doesm't work well over networked  or cloud "devices"

And why do you think when we got my last PC, the HP Envy, I went for one
with a 256GB SSD and an
onboard 1TB NTFS spinning metal disk.  Sometimes you just have to have the
right tool to do the job,
you can't expect a little Fiat 500 to keep up with a Ferrari - but you can
get a lot more shopping in it  ;-))

Having said that though on my 256 SSD the OS and apps take up a bit more
than half that space it still leaves
me with 40-60 hours of Audacity Stereo recording - which is more than
plenty for recording and editing
a 2-3 hour show and export as MP3 for use - provided I remember not to
accumulate the projects.

Peter.



> To get an idea about popularity, a quick search for "laptop" on Google
> shopping gives these disk sizes (in GB unless stated):
> 1TB x1
> 512 x2
> 256 x4
> 250 x1
> *128 x5*
> *64 x6*
> 32 x2
>
>
>
>>
>> 3) We also have a set of good safety mechanisms for users who do manage
>> to fill the drive their
>> active project is on.  You did most of that work and we in QA did a LOT
>> of testing - we are very confident
>> that in those situations most sensible users should be able to salvage
>> their projects.
>>
>> 4) I find myself doubting of most users would bother to use it (I never
>> did when I was using 3.0.0 alphas for
>> my production work - I knew I had a big enough disk)
>> i) many users wouldn't realize it was there or what it was for
>> ii) expert users might shy away as it is fairly time consuming to run a
>> compaction on a large project,
>> So after a couple of tries they may neve bother again.
>>
>> 5) The project is properly compacted on Exit from Audacity.
>>
>> 6) There is a simple workaround based on 5)
>> Exit Audacity > relaunch Audacity > reopen your project
>> And I documented this in several places in the Manual.
>>
>
> I'm suggesting that we have a button that effectively does this - *which
> we had in previous releases for many years*.
> I don't see how we can describe the loss of this feature as anything but a
> "regression".
>
> Steve
>
>
>>
>> So my assessment of this is that Compact Project command is a
>> nice-to-have and not a must-have.
>> It is something that we can happily live without gor 3.0.0 (as we have
>> lived without it for all previous
>> versions of Audacity).
>>
>> Peter.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> PRL
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 8:00 AM Peter Sampson <
>>> pet...@gm...> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 12:54 PM Steve Fiddle <ste...@gm...>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Up to and including Audacity 2.4.2 we had the ability to delete Undo
>>>>> History. This had more bells and whistles in later versions, but the basic
>>>>> ability has been available for a very long time.
>>>>>
>>>>> It was removed in 3.0.0 and replaced with "Compact", but now "Compact"
>>>>> has been removed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Can we have at least a basic "Delete Undo History" restored?
>>>>> If not, then I think this has to be logged as a regression.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> And if we did, we'd have to make pretty darn sure that it didn't
>>>> re-introduce the nasty fringe bugs/conflict
>>>> issues from Compact. which led to its withdrawal.
>>>>
>>>> The workaround is dead simple:
>>>> 1) close Audacity
>>>> 2) Re-launch
>>>> 3) Re-open
>>>>
>>>> Peter.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Steve
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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