Select Track Start to Cursor affected by label tracks

[DickN]

Using Windows 7 SP1, 2.2.0 alpha nightly builds 23 July and 6 August both have this problem:
If a label track is selected in addition to an audio track, "Select->Region->Track Start to Cursor" always selects from time=0, but "Select Cursor to Track End" selects to the end of the audio track even it it's not the end of the project.
I haven't back-tracked to find the build where this quirk originated. Testing only on Windows 7 for now, my Vista machine has a bad power supply.

- DickN

[steve]

That does not seem to be happening here (on Linux)
Could you post a screenshot of your project , showing which tracks are selected immediately before you do "Select Cursor to Track End"

[DickN]

OK, I made a simple example.

1: Generate 10 sec noise
2: Shift clip to center of screen
3: New Label Track
4: Set cursor to center
5: Select both Audio and Label track
6: Save window000.png

Initial state

window000.png (54.79 KiB) Viewed 957 times

7: Select Track Start to Cursor
8: Save window001.png

After "Select Track Start to Cursor" when label track is selected.

window001.png (54.77 KiB) Viewed 957 times

9: Select Cursor to Track End
10: Save window002.png

After "Select Cursor to Track End"

window002.png (54.89 KiB) Viewed 957 times

11: Deselect All
12: Set Cursor to Center of Audio track (Audio track now selected but not the Label track)
13: "Select Track Start to Cursor"
14: Save window003.png

- DickN

[billw58]

I see the same behaviour in 2.1.3.

"Track start" for an audio track means the "start of the audio in the track" not "start of the project".
"Track end" for an audio track means the "end of the audio in the track" not "end of the project".
A label track always starts at time 0, regardless of any labels in the track.
"Track end" for a label track is the time of the last label in the track; if there are no labels, "track end" is undefined.
When multiple tracks are selected, "track start" means the earliest start time in all the tracks, and "track end" means the latest end time in all the tracks.

Given the above rules, selecting in a audio track and a label track will give the reported result.

-- Bill

[steve]

Thanks for the steps DickN.
The behaviour that you describe is by design (intended).

As Bill wrote: "A label track always starts at time 0, regardless of any labels in the track", whereas a non-empty audio track starts at the beginning of the first audio clip in that (any) selected audio track).

Note that if an audio track starts before time=0 (as often occurs when overdubbing, due to latency correction), selecting to the start of the audio track will still select to the beginning of the first audio clip. This gives a selection that begins at a negative time index (and shows hyphens in the start time of the Selection Toolbar because the time controls do not support negative time).

In the somewhat unusual case of an empty audio track, the start of the track is time=0 (probably the most sensible way to handle this fringe case).

[DickN]

I can understand per the definitions given that this is "by design", and makes perfectly good sense from the programmer's perspective. From the user's perspective, I don't understand why label tracks, even if selected, should be included in the determination of "track start" - especially given that "track start" for a label track is a constant. There's already a command for selecting from "start". I almost always have a label track selected, since I've probably just used it for navigation. I might also intend to use <ctrl>-b next. Then I'd have to de-select it and re-select it.

Another situation where I typically get reminded to de-select a label track is when using Auto-Duck. I generally apply this effect over a relatively small portion of the project, often delimited by a range label. I use it when there's a dialog between the pastor and the congregation that I want to preserve in the recording. The pastor is much louder in the ceiling mic than any individual congregation member, so I use Auto-Duck to effectively mute that source while he's talking (sometimes takes 2 passes due to the 24dB max duck). Why would an effect care that a label track (because it's "a track which does not contain audio") is also selected? Isn't it reasonable to presume that the user doesn't expect the effect to operate on it? Are there any other effects that are sensitive to selected label tracks?

[steve]

From the user's perspective, I don't understand why label tracks, even if selected, should be included in the determination of "track start"

Do you agree that "track end" makes sense for label tracks?
Would it make more sense if "track start" for label tracks was the start of the first label (as "track start" is the start of the first audio clip in audio tracks)?

[DickN]

Do you agree that "track end" makes sense for label tracks?

Yes.

Would it make more sense if "track start" for label tracks was the start of the first label (as "track start" is the start of the first audio clip in audio tracks)?

Yes. It would also save a step when finding the first label.

I think. however, that label tracks and audio tracks should not be considered together when determining the location of Track Start or Track End, even if both Audio and Label tracks are selected. I can't think of a situation in which one would not care which type of track determined the "Track Start" or "Track End" result - it's almost always the set of selected Audio tracks (and at least for me, that's usually just one) that is of interest. Certainly if one is interested in only Label Tracks one can de-select all the Audio Tracks just as one must now de-select all the Label Tracks to consider only Audio Tracks. But when would one ever want to consider both at once? Having to de-select the label track just used for navigation and then re-select it later don't seem like burdensome steps, but eliminating them would be an improvement.

{edit] How about using the focus to indicate whether the selected label tracks or the selected audio tracks are to be used for determining Track Start or Track End?

Regarding finding the first or last label, it wasn't long ago that when tabbing through the labels, the last label would de-select when I hit <tab>, and then the next <tab> would roll back to the first label. Same for <Shift-tab>. I prefer that over the present sequence in which the selection rolls over with nothing unusual to indicate that it's about to. Of course, if I watch the scroll bar or the timeline I'll see that it happened, but that's after the fact.