Hey all! It seems like I blundered here. We’re planning to introduce overlapping clips at some point in the future, which would allow for things like non-destructively adjusting timing of inserted clips, switching between different takes and things like that. As we had to refactor pasting for this release anyway to work with stretched clips, we decided to go with the behavior you now see as a preparatory step towards a world where overlapping clips exist.
You’re absolutely right though that, as things are right now, there isn’t really any value in this behavior for spoken word projects. We will therefore add an option in 3.4.2 which reverts to the old behavior by default, and gives an option in the preferences to use the current one if you want to (which can be somewhat useful in music contexts, fwiw). 3.4.1 is scheduled to release tomorrow (fixing urgent crashes and bugs), 3.4.2 should follow in the coming weeks.
The new clip behaviour is also affecting “Copy” (Ctrl-C) operation. When copying a whole track (as in making a radio programme) it is now necessary to select the whole track (Ctrl-A) before copying, even if the Preferences:Tracks Behaviors setting says “Select all audio, if selection required”. If the full track is not selected, the clipboard retains whatever was last pasted.
Can the Copy process be restored to recognise the condition where the whole track is a single clip, and auto-select it according to the Preference setting?
A new version, that “should follow in the coming weeks”. Not sure how to reply to that. You are aware, that this may cause a fairly serious problem for some users - whose purpose for using Audacity is not entirely casual?
Nobody is forcing you to use 3.4 at the moment. Feel free to use 3.3.3 in the meantime, or, in fact, until the end of time. All versions down to 2.0.0 are available in Old Audacity versions download
Indeed, you are correct - no one is forcing me to use anything. And much obliged for your dedication and professionalism, sir (or ma’am or whatever, as the case may be).