Win10 Audacity 3.1.3
I have been happily assigning shortcut keys to my humble set of user macros, and decided that I could have organized my choices better.
I should have started by identifying a large vacant space in a block of shortcut keys, or using a combination that is scarce. Ctrl+ is a common prefix across all Windows applications; Ctrl+Alt+ is not as common.
I have trusted Audacity not to do me any harm, and have bravely gone in (Edit, Preferences, Keyboard) and set my shortcut keys to default-Standard, as suggested by https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/keyboard_preferences.html#custom which says “Defaults: There are two sets of default shortcuts available in Audacity. The default set is "Standard”.
Is this the equivalent of removing the section “[NewKeys]” from the INI file?
Thanks
Chris
Resetting keyboard shortcuts to “default > Standard” removes the entire [NewKeys] section from audacity.cfg.
Resetting keyboard shortcuts to “default > Full” removes the entire [NewKeys] section from audacity.cfg and replaces them with the additional key bindings that are in the “Full” set but not in the “Standard” set.
Steve, my apologies for the delay in replying, but I got absorbed in the other project you set for me (Huge Grin)
Another thought on what I now think of as the hard-wired Standard set of shortcut keys, one of which i have been using extensively over the past week - Ctrl+P for Edit, Preferences.
Ctrl+P has been used throughout Windows applications for 30? years, and now online banking web sites, to bring up the printing dialogue.
I am sure that designers of Audacity had good reason for using Ctrl+P - after all, Audacity doesn’t have much to Print, but it might be handy if Ctrl+P and a few other shortcut keys could be re-mapped by the user.
This is not a critical issue, but over the years I have found that the less “rules” i apply, the easier is the job all round.
I am now maintaining a growing table of my shortcut-key assignments for my LibriVox macros, and will be looking for a way to integrate them in some form of “installation procedure” down the road.
Audacity does have a “File menu > Print” command, though it’s not very useful, whereas Audacity’s Preferences are rather important for users. Personally I think that “Ctrl + P” is a handy and easy to remember shortcut for “Preferences”.
Personally I wouldn’t recommend remapping the default shortcuts. Most of the “Full” default set are quite sensible, but there’s so many of them it’s hard to remap them one without having to remap another that is already using the key combination. Also, it will make help instructions or tutorials harder to follow if the instructions use different shortcuts than your custom version.
Agreed. Absolutely. I singled out Ctrl+P because it has become increasingly useful in other application.
Nearly all of the default key bindings (including “Ctrl + P”) can be remapped individually by users …
Steve, thanks for this. I didn’t think of trying that. Just for the fun of it i dropped Ctrl+P and assigned Ctrl+Alt+P with success :clapping:
Now all I need do is remember to use Ctrl+Alt+P rather than Ctrl+P to get back into Preferences and re-assign Ctrl+Alt+P as Ctrl+P (grin)
… it will make help instructions or tutorials harder to follow if the instructions use different shortcuts than your custom version.
I agree here too. I have a page “Shortcut-Keys (or Hotkeys)”
Before you start assigning shortcut keys to your own macros, we recommend that you consider:-
(a) Avoiding existing shortcut key assignments. Members of the Audacity Forum are prone to referring to commands by their assigned shortcut keys. For example “Ctrl+Shift+E : Exports to an audio file”. If someone recommends that you . “Ctrl+Shift+E” and you have assigned “Ctrl+Shift+E” to your DeleteAllAudio macro, you could be in for a surprise.
(b) Identifying a large vacant space in a block of shortcut keys, or using a combination that is scarce. Ctrl+ is a common prefix across all Windows applications; Ctrl+Alt+ is not as common.
(c) Using shortcut keys only for your most commonly used macros, such as Generate5Silence which you might use every few minutes or so, whereas ConcatenateFilesMP3 is used once every three hours, at the wrap-up of a session of recording and editing for a Section of a LibriVox project.
I continue to be impressed with the versatility of Audacity and its ability to be molded to the user’s needs and wants. The trouble is, Audacity is so attractive that I am neglecting my commitment to actually use Audacity to record Audiobooks!
Thanks again for your guidance.
Chris