To select a track, click in the left-hand sound specification descriptor window. And you have to do it exactly there. If you click anywhere else, you get other tools or services.
It seems to me the description of how to do that is overly complicated:
Click in the dark blue panel to the left…
Click in the zebra-striped panel to the left…
Click in the gray panel to the left…
Click in the red panel to the left…
Click on the thin red/yellow/green bar to the left…
My impression is the graphic would have to change since that panel looks exactly like all the other panels in that grouping. I think it’s much more important than that. It’s an action panel, although it appears like an ordinary INFO panel, which, it could be argued, makes it mislabeled.
You can also select it by double clicking on any empty part of the track, or if it is a single continuous track (not multiple audio clips) you can double click on the waveform. I generally find double clicking easier and quicker than clicking on the Track Control Panel (while avoiding the sliders and buttons).
Generally, to select a track I single-click in the text portion of the Track Control Panel (“Stereo 44100Hz…”) or on the waveform itself.
I’ve always been a bit confused about the results of selecting a track. In the first place, selecting one or more makes their background a darker grey - you might think it’s enough of a contrast, but I always have to double-check to make sure I’ve got the right tracks selected. Then there’s the yellow outline - what exactly does that mean? Is it the same as selecting a track?
Here’s an example - I’ve got two tracks. Neither is Selected (dark background), but one has a yellow outline. The Selection boxes at the bottom show a selected region, which is also shown on the timeline, but it’s not “applied” to any track. Now I select “Silence Audio” (Ctrl-L). Know what happens? I expected it to silence that region of the outlined track… nope. It expands the selection to the entire project, and silences both tracks completely. Apparently, the yellow outline meant nothing, and the selection meant nothing.
Similarly, single-clicking the audio in Track One selects that track at that point, giving the track a dark bg and an outline. Hitting the Down-Arrow key marks that time-point on both tracks, moves the outline to Track Two, but leaves Track One with a dark bg - Track Two does not have the dark bg. I have no idea what’s selected at this point.
Sorry if this is side-tracking the issue, but (in my mind) it relates to “select a track” and it’s always puzzled me.
It’s not straightforward. If the waves are small and the panel is big, then clicking on the numbers to the left is the only way. There’s no extra blank real estate. Just clicking on the waveform is much too ambiguous and your results depend on the last thing you were doing.
Somebody gave me the skinny on the Yellow Outline and while ago and I don’t remember any more. One is selected and the other is the really and truly selected.
The dark shading indicates what is Selected.
Effects and processes are applied to “the selection”, so for example, when you delete audio, it is the selected audio that is deleted, when you apply the Amplify effect, it is the selected audio that is amplified.
There is also an option in Preferences to “Select all when none selected”.
If this option is enabled, then attempting to apply an effect when there is no audio selection will automatically “select all” and then apply the effect.
The yellow border indicates the track that has “focus” - it is the “current track”.
Only one track has focus at a time.
If you have multiple tracks in a project you can toggle the selection on/off in the track that has focus using the Enter key.
To move focus from one track to another, use the up/down cursor keys.
