full screen but only on 2nd audio file

Audacity 3 Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

I am running on linux mint 20.
Also on audacity 2.4.2, which i got from the mint software update center.
and for full disclosure, i’m a newly xferred user from windows to linux.

so i am noticing a funnyism that is sudo annoying.
when i open a single song file (mp3, flac), a normal sized window appears. but if i open up a another audio file (and it seems like it is insensitive as to type), well that window opens up, but it opens up to full screeen size.
and then i have to shrink it down to normal size so i can view both at the same time.

anyone else see this behaviour?

2

Firstly, you should not normally need to do that. Audacity is a multi-track audio editor, so if you need multiple audio files open at the same time you can Import them into one project. If you find that you need multiple Audacity windows open at the same time, you are probably doing something wrong.


The official repository version in Mint 20 (Ubuntu 20) is Audacity 2.3.3-1build1. This is the recommended version.

Unfortunately the Software Center may also offer Flatpak and / or Snap package builds of Audacity 2.4.2. We have received multiple reports of problems with these versions, so I do not recommend using them.

3

thanks for the info

I’ll remove it and then reinstall via the software center to see that i get the older supported version.

and i will also try to importing files as a project. but as a background note, i am mainly doing this simply to visually inspect two different audio files to see if they are essentially the same but different format, to then decide which one to keep. so in this case, it is not like a normal use case for audacity i believe.

4

That will be much easier if you import both into the same project.

5

I am running the newest version 3.3.3 downloaded from the official site and it still opens the second file in full screen.
Why do I open it more than one time? Because it is running in different ares of different desktops and trying to return to a desktop to open a new window then moving the window to the other desktop is very inconvenient and poor for workflow.
It did not do this in the older version I was running before upgrading (lots of things).