I have a very basic problem with Selection manipulation :
I have a recording. With the “I” tool selected I click somewhere in the waveform to mark the start of a selection. Then I shift-click somewhere else to mark the end of the selection. That portion of the waveform is selected and shows highlighted. If I move the mouse to near one of its edges the cursor changes to a pointed hand allowing me to move that selection boundary to the right or to the left.
With the selection highlighted in the waveform I switch to another window (for instance, to read the manual). When I come back to the Audacity window the selection is no longer highlighted and I can’t find a way to get it highlighted again. The net effect is that I can no longer get the pointed-hand cursor that allows me to move its boundaries. The timeline does show a line with arrows at both ends, coincident with the start and end of the selection, but moving those arrows does not seem to change the boundaries of the selection.
The question is : once a selection has been made, you change windows and then come back to the Audacity window. The selected portion of the waveform is no longer highlighted. How do you get it highlighted again so you can move its boundaries ?
Audacity doesn’t have Edit Markers like you may have gotten used to if you used other editing programs. It doesn’t have Mark-In and Mark-Out. I think the best we can do is the labels. You can label the two ends of the edit and reselect it very easily. You can also label a region.
I also found this : While the selected region is no longer shaded / highlighted if I click somewhere else (in the Audacity window or elsewhere), the timeline line that encompasses the selection (with arrows at both ends) is still there. Right-clicking on that line gives you an option of using it to change the boundaries of the selection. I suppose that in some cases, when you have lost the highlighting of the selection, this may be an easier way to adjust its bounds than using labels.
Still, I find that if someone has been through the pains of implementing the highlighting of a waveform selection, with those nice pointed-hand cursors at both ends that allow for its fine adjustment, it is a shame that that visual clue and associated controls irremediably disappear if I inadvertently or otherwise click somewhere else. If it has to disappear there should be an easy way to make it visible again.
I don’t know if you are using a Trackpad gesture to switch application, but if you use COMMAND + TAB to switch, the track should not lose its selectedness when you return to Audacity and so the selection will still be visible in the track.
If you click in the waveform the previous selection will be lost, replaced by the editing cursor at the point you clicked. If you click somewhere else the selection will not be lost.
Doing that still does not show the selection in the track and you can’t do anything with the time selection unless the track is selected.
To restore selectedness to the track that has the yellow focus border, hit ENTER or RETURN on your keyboard.