That is because we use CTRL-click on the Play button to cut preview a region (which we try to indicate by that “hole” in the middle of the Play button icon when you hold CTRL).
So by analogy, if you hold CTRL and drag a region in the Timeline, you will get a Quick Play Cut Preview.
Cut previewing a point is currently a non-action, hence CTRL-click on the Timeline does nothing.
Perhaps we should make CTRL-click (and C) do something useful when there is no region, such as play the “preview before cut” and “preview after cut” length set in Playback Preferences (that is, play those lengths either side of the point). Better than doing nothing.
To avoid confusion with CTRL-click quick playing in the waves but not in the Timeline, it might have been better to use ALT-click (OPTION-click on Mac) for quick play in the waves, but Linux prevents that by using ALT-click to move the window.
I’m interested in a better way to play from a spot. In fact I’d also like to be able to play AT a specific spot with an effective scrub / jog feature. Would I have your support (in principle) if I were to promote such a feature as a replacement for the current Ctrl+Click in the track window?
I would also like to enhance the Click in Timeline Quick Play feature to make it easier to line up with a specific point in the waveform. Would you support that (in principle)?
I say “in principle” because I am not asking you to support an unknown implementation. I am just asking if you support the idea in principle.
That was not the case for me, but understandable given there is no signposting for the feature.
Yes, I agree.
Does it indicate that? I understand it to indicate that you can use CTRL to Cut Preview a region. How does a hole in the Play icon indicate Quick Play?
That one needs some thought. In Multi-Tool, CTRL enables Time Shift. Uses might be found for CTRL in the other non-Selection tools that would be more useful than Quick Play.
Well I could point to bugs in features I don’t like or don’t use. Not really constructive for those who use the features. And none of those are P1.
Removing features is always a regression for someone. There needs to be something better put in place to do exactly the same thing, just as easily, before a feature is removed.
I notice you complained when I suggested moving click to merge a split-line (an arguably mistaken feature which prevents selecting at the split line) to right-click. And I would only be moving that feature to another action, not removing it.
No-one is suggesting removing the Quick-Play feature Gale - just reducing the number of ways of doing it from two to one.
And you haven’t responded to Steve’s earlier suggestion which would ameliorate retaining just the Timeline click in favour of losing the Ctrl+click in the waveform (which is a more complex user gesture)
I would also like to enhance the Click in Timeline Quick Play feature to make it easier to line up with a specific point in the waveform. Would you support that (in principle)?
We don’t have those improvements yet - if they can even be made. Has it been said that Paul’s scrubbing will ever do more than stutter-play?
So why won’t you object to that use of CTRL + click?
Using Paul’s scrub to move to a point may not be as convenient as CTRL-click - it depends how it is implemented. I don’t want to have to hold the left mouse button down to continue playing normally because I don’t need to do that with CTRL + click.
And if I use Paul’s scrub I do not want playback to stop as soon as I stop dragging. Steve wants that to happen, but that is “proper scrubbing”. That’s useless for me if you remove CTRL-click to move to a point and play.
Definitely I would support that, if I could keep my eyes on the waveform while moving the playback position.
But as per my previous post, what I want from poor man’s scrubbing and what you want from real scrubbing may be incompatible unless we are very smart about making it into one feature.
Yes I support that, if it includes a fix for the problem that you can’t restart Quick Play at or near the same point. I find that bug unacceptable and it’s part of the reason I currently oppose removal of CTRL + click which does let you restart Quick Play at the same spot.
That said, if “poor” and “real” scrubbing are incompatible, I could see using the Timeline for “real” scrubbing and waveform for “poor”. If they are compatible, I could see not using the Timeline at all as a playback tool.
Probably better for a separate topic, but as you have raised it here I’ll ask here.
What do you want from “poor man’s scrubbing” that is not available in the enhanced seek behaviour (or in “real scrubbing”)?
Again, please see my previous posts. You and I have very different uses for “quick and convenient play to find what you want” and I am not yet convinced they are even compatible.
Quick Play in the track is not exactly the same as Quick Play in the Timeline, so not an exact duplication, so removing Quick Play in the Track can be argued as removal. It’s up to you to square that circle if you can. I’m interested (in principle) in having a more unified Quick Play that operates in one place.
Modifier keys/behaviours to toggle modifying selections or not and to toggle setting down at stop position or not.
Not modifying selections at all is not the answer, it’s merely better than removing selections that are already there.
Unanswerable in detail, because I don’t know if you want a carbon copy of ProTools (which I would have to research to find out exactly what it does) or merely something similar. I’ve said what I don’t want it to do.
One feature I would appreciate from “real scrubbing” is smooth playback instead of stutter playback.
Can we suspend this now? It’s not helping progress to 2.1.0.
Who said it will Paul’s scrubbing as it is now - I don’t think so, I want proper “scrubbing” the way Steve (and many others) describe and understand it.
And no-one is suggesting making changes like removing Ctrl+click before 2.1.0 (we’re not that daft - we’ve read what the RM wrote a while back!) = so yes I would envision removing the Quick-Play use of Ctrl+click in the waveform as part of the next release.
Because it will possibly be part of a “gesture package” for scrubbing, involving the Ctrl modifier.
Who said it will be Paul’s scrub - certainly I don’t want to see that as it is now - as I said earlier I want proper scrubbing and I want it to stop playing as soon as it finishes the scrub - it ain’t scrubbing otherwise, it would be scrub&play - and there’s plenty of other convenient ways to invoke playback start. The nornmal reason for scrubbing is to find usually fairly small bits of audio accurately, you don’t normally need it to go merrily on playing to the end of the project/track.
We can’t afford to just build a “Gale-Audacity” on what one user wants, we have to consider all our users. You are already out-voted two to one here - we shall see how voting develops as we progress with scrubbing ideas after 2.1.0. At the moment we have no idea what the developers and in particular the TLC think about all this …
You mean just like we get right now by using the Timeline for “poor-man’s scrubbing”
I’m pretty sure that is exactly what Steve, I and many other users want too - and some of them will want backwards smooth playback when scrubbing backwards
If you like - but I’m a great believer in planning ahead for what we will tackle and how we might tackle it once the next release is made. Plus there are inevitably fallow periods in the run-up to any release when only small bug-fixes and small manual changes are made - this frees up some useful thought-time.
I have no desire or need to spend time creating temporary labels. I want to play and replay at arbitrary places on demand, in one step, without moving the editing cursor, and eyeballing the waves. I can do that just fine now, using CTRL + click in the waves.
No - I mean proper “poor-man’s scrubbing” that plays just the scrub range and then stops and you only get that with a range in the Timeline!
And I mean the “poor-man’s scrubbing” that many of our users have used and got used to over many years as the Timeline technique is at least fairly well documented in the manual for those that bother to RTFM.
Ctrl+click in the waveform is in a no way any form of “scrub” it merely invokes a Quick-Play at a point in the waveform - the two are not analogous, the Timeline approach is richer in functionality than the Ctrl+click in the waveform and thus more useful to most users.
Steve is trying to be constructive here (thanks, Steve) and I am trying to be constructive in saying what is wrong with Timeline Quick Play and in supporting (in principle) a fully featured solution that works non-confusingly in one place.
I am aware that VLC is not an audio editor but if would be crazy if playback stopped in that on releasing drag. It would be almost as crazy for Audacity to have no option to do that, IMHO, especially if it had no option to let you look directly at the waves while doing scrub and play.
I notice that there is no (known to me) user push to remove CTRL + click, so at the moment there are only two votes for that, a very parsimonious vote indeed.
Paul was trying to add extra functionality to waveform playback by CTRL + drag.
Currently the Timeline “play a range” is severely limited by not being able to change the range and continue playing, so is hardly a useful scrub. CTRL + drag (even as implemented now) lets you change the selection and continue playing. Even now you can stop playing when you want to, by just releasing the mouse.
I hope now we can agree that there is no way that Timeline play can replace waveform play until Timeline play is fixed and improved.
