Labels Editor: Okay, Okay! (suggestion for manual)

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Audacity 2.3.1 (but probably many versions, many/all platforms)

Select a label and right-click to bring up the “Edit Labels” box, change the time(s) and click “OK” - the update is immediate and the Edit Labels box goes away. Interestingly, Audacity makes a not-completely-expected selection, e.g. edit the Start Time, then click the End Time cell, then click OK, and Audacity selects the range (NEW Start) to (OLD End). Regardless, “OK” means “Make the change, and exit,” as I expected.

Select a label, edit, click the Track cell and use the drop-down to reassign it to another label track. Click “OK” and the info appears updated, but the box does not go away. Click the “X” in the upper-right corner (or whatever the “Close Window” decoration is on the current platform), and the box goes away without changing the label. It’s necessary to click OK a second time when changing the Track assignment of a label.

It didn’t take me a very long time to figure this out, but it was a slightly frustrating exercise. I’d suggest changing the operation of the Labels Edit, but it might be easier to clarify the manual… but I’m not sure of the most helpful wording.

  • Win
2

Thanks for the report.
Testing on Linux I see several other peculiarities as well, so I’ll flag this issue with the developers.

3

This I think is a bug - a minor bug, but a bug nonetheless - so I will be logging this later.

Thanks for the report Win, much appreciated.


I think this is how it is “supposed to work” when changing the track that the label should be in - this is just one of those places in Audacity where the GUI is shall we say “less than elegant” (there are others).

The first OK is to accept the change you make in the Track cell - the second OK is to accept all the changes you may have made when editing that label. If it just accepted the trcak change with just one OK you’d meed to keep reopening the editor dialog for each edit.

Peter.

4

Hmm - that made me look at the Manual and I note that this page
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/editing_resizing_and_moving_labels.html#context
omits mention of the edit function in the context menu - the images don’t show it.

I don’t recall when we made that change - but it obviously got overlooked in the documentation.

I’ll be fixing that for the alpha Manual for the upcoming 2.3.3 release (I can’t fix Manuals for any released version).

Thanks for that “nudge” Win - most useful :slight_smile: :sunglasses:

Peter.

5

Peter & Steve -

Thanks to you both. I’ll be the first to say this is all fairly minor, just another item (or two) to add to the list. But hey, it’s a team effort, all working to improve things! Much appreciated.

  • Win
6

We have an upcoming (un)conference for Audacity Team members - I’m hoping to find some time there to discuss the Labels Editor GUI.

Updating the Manual page will take me a bit of time as I will have to update all the images on the page -as the existing ones are ftrom a very old version of Audacity (hence the lack of the “Edit…” entry in the context menu in the images). But it will be done before 2.3.3 gets released - I have marked it P1 to ensure that happens.

Peter