Scrolling sometimes jumps in Envelope mode

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Instructions:

  1. Make a new document
  2. Make a new stereo track and add any content to it (silence/audio/noise)
  3. Duplicate it several times so the tracks go off the screen
  4. Starting at the top, scroll down so that track #2 is very near the top, with just a small amount of track #1 visible
  5. Enter Envelope mode
  6. At the top of track #2, create an envelope point, but don’t release the mouse button until you’ve moved the mouse SLIGHTLY over track #1
  7. Result = Audacity abruptly jumps up to track #1.

Basically, whenever you drag an envelope point, Audacity will always jump to reveal whatever track is under the cursor at that moment. This can be very jarring and disorienting when all of a sudden you’re looking at the wrong track and don’t quite know what happened!

But even if it jumps to the correct track (the one you’re editing - if it wasn’t fully on screen), it’s still very jarring and unpleasant. I do not want the program to move the scrollbar at all when I’m editing an envelope - I want it to remain exactly where I put it. I like to be fully in control of the scrollbar at all times.

Audacity 2.4.2
OS: Windows 7 x64
GPU: Sapphire ATI Radeon 4670 HD 750Mhz

2

FWIW: I was able to duplicate this behavior in 2.4.2 as well as in the current alpha 3.0.0 (1/3).

The behavior is similar to if you were dragging the cursor to select a range, and kept dragging to include a track that was slightly off-screen. When you let go, the Audacity puts the new track on screen, which in this latter case is probably something you do want.

3

FWIW: this is the behavior that has existed ever since 1.3.0 (i.e. November 2005)

In 1.2.6 this did not happen - but as we have received no complaints apart from this one in just over 15 years it may be fair to assume that most users are not unhappy with this the way it is :nerd:

Peter