When I attempt to drag over tracks in a window, if the mouse accidentally enters - even momentarily - another window, then those tracks are highlighted - and they stay highlighted even if the drag ends back in the original track window. Surely if the drag starts and ends in the same window it shouldn’t do this? Word, Excel, etc. highlight the items defined by where the drag starts and finishes - thank goodness. Maybe Audacity, too, please?
No track/window protect feature I can see - despite the history of requests. The search for the excellent seems to have frozen out the worthwhile, so how about a simple feature which allows you to protect a track/window - “read only” mode - i.e. you can see it, you can highlight bits of it and see how long the highlighted bits are, you can copy and paste out of it - but you can’t alter it, either directly or via other dependant processes.
That doesn’t happen for me. If I start dragging from, say, track 2, and I drift into track 3, then track 3 becomes highlighted, but so long as I move the pointer back to track 2 before releasing the mouse button, then only track 2 is selected.
I agree with handel, it would be very useful when editing tracks to make sure some of them we don’t want to edit but use as references to edit other ones that those reference tracks be set read-only. Common examples of reference tracks would be a tempo click track, or an original song track one wants to cover some part of it in another cover track.
Would there be a way to program such a feature in Nyquist if not part of Audacity source code ?
No, it would need to be programmed into Audacity itself.
There would also need to be a way to turn the “lock” on and off. How would you suggest doing that?
If the “lock” is too easy to turn on/off, isn’t there a danger of accidentally locking or unlocking a track, thus creating a greater risk?
What if it were part of the track left panel, like “Mute”, “Solo” options ? Once the “ReadOnly” option would be ON, no editing of that track would allowed, that is, no modification action. Of course, any other action like region selecting, copying, transport, volume, muting, soloing, etc. would be allowed. How is that ?
There have been quite a few requests for locking the track’s buttons and sliders (mute, solo, gain, pan), which I guess is because those people have been accidentally clicking on them.
Personally I blame touchpads. It’s far too easy to click on something accidentally with a touchpad. I regularly have problems clicking on the wrong thing when using a touchpad, but never when using my trusty wireless mouse. Perhaps the best solution would be for us to sell Audacity for say $10, and throw in a “free” wireless mouse
OK. I still think a read-only option in the left track panel would be a nice solution to lock the track out of editing. It could be a bottom of the panel, beside the stereo split options and therefore easily away of accidental mishandling errors.
Anyway, I am very interested in having this option, as far as feasible. Any future for it ?
This has been discussed many times before, and I think that the main problem is that different users want different things.
Some users want to be able to lock the track entirely: If you want to change anything in a track (including track buttons and sliders), then the track has to be unlocked first.
Some users, like yourself, want to be able to do certain things to a track while it is locked (“region selecting, copying, transport, volume, muting, soloing, etc”)
Some users want only to lock the controls in the track’s control panel, but allow all other actions.
Some users only want to disable resizing of tracks.
Some want only to “lock” a track so that audio clips in it cannot be moved (but all other actions allowed).
(there are others)
All of these feature request have reasons. None of these feature request are essential.
Why would a developer favour any one of these options over the rest? Attempting to satisfy all of these requests would be very complicated.
I understand, Steve. And that’s why I had a little hope for a Nyquist solution, which would allow individual user approach rather than trying to change the source code, which is common resource to all of us. Maybe there would be a Nyquist way to handle my need by poping up a warning when editing is attempted on a certain track, if read-only locking feature is not an option. Is there a way to detect any editing action to a track before it happens ?
Like other effects, Nyquist runs “on demand” when you apply the effect, then the effect closes. It can’t do anything when it’s not running, and Audacity can’t do anything else during the short time that the effect is running.
I assume that you are aware of “Undo” (top of the “Edit” menu, shortcut “Ctrl + Z”). If you “accidentally” apply an effect to more tracks than intended, then you can undo the effect, correct the selection, and reapply the effect to the correct track(s). Effects can be re-run with “Ctrl + R” (top of the Effect menu: “Repeat Last Effect”).
I see. Yes I was aware of those Undo/Redo options. So I am afraid I’ll keep using them as the available solution to this read-only lack of feature problem. Thanks anyway for your time thinking about it.
I still think a read-only option in the left track panel would be a nice solution to lock the track out of editing. It could be a bottom of the panel, beside the stereo split options and therefore easily away of accidental mishandling errors.