Macro Feature Requests..

Working with 2.3 its quite an impressive piece of audio software (I use many high end apps like Goldwave, SoundForge, Audition, etc) and find the batching logic pretty damn impressive when compared to others. Wow… well done! :sunglasses:

Can I offer two suggestions to add for the “Manage Macros” section:

  1. Option to disable steps as right now you can only delete steps so they are not applied, and…
  2. Option to Clone steps as its a pain to have to keep inserting similar steps in the list which already exist.

A tip for “advanced” users of Macros: You can edit the macro directly in a plain text editor.

When you create a macro, Audacity creates a text file in its “Macros” folder (see: [urlhttps://manual.audacityteam.org/man/manage_macros.html#Sharing_a_Macro]Sharing a Macro[/url]).
For a full list of Macro commands, see: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/scripting_reference.html

I agree that these could be useful, though I’d probably go for “Copy” and “Paste” buttons instead, but otherwise a similar idea.

Macros are quite a new feature, developed from a simpler feature in earlier versions of Audacity called “Chains”. There may well be more changes to Macros in the future, but I’m aware that the developer of Macros is cautious about adding too many features because he doesn’t want it to become too intimidating for “the average user”.

Indeed, I was aware that the macros can be edited like XML but would be nice to see that functionality right in the GUI.

For another Macros feature request:

  1. Add the ability to drag macros around in the step list in addition to merely clicking Move Up or Move Down.

Fantastic work at the Audacity team! \o/

Found new Macro tool very useful. Could be more useful if
a) you could control options under Audio Track. I built macro to make a spectogram track but have to manually select spectogram. Also enable spectogram settings.
b) select macro parameters for input at run time. Enter “Ask” (or similar code) in the macro parameter. This would cause a popup window asking for that parameter value. Ex. I have a macro to make a zero phase lo-pass by reversing the wave form. I would like to vary the cutoff frequency.

Thanks for the good work.

Jim Downing

In a macro, you could

  1. set Preferences to make Spectrogram view the default,
  2. then copy the track,
  3. add a new track (which will be in Spectrogram view),
  4. paste the contents of the clipboard,
  5. and delete the original track.