I use Audacity 2.0.3.0 on MacOS 10.13.3 and I really want to customize the software to its full potential. I know Audacity is open source, but when I look for the source code all I can find is for later versions. Since Audacity has always been open source, surely the source code for 2.0.3.0 must have been available at some point when it was the latest version, right? Is there some kind of archive for the source code files for each version? Should I contact the developers directly?
In which case you should use the current source code: GitHub - audacity/audacity: Audio Editor
Only the “mini source” is available for version 2.0.3 because we switched from Sourceforge to GitHub: Audacity - Browse Files at SourceForge.net
Thanks. Does the “mini-source” have any limitations? Can I still compile it to a fully working software?
The minisource is only the Audacity source code. It does not include the source code of libraries that Audacity uses, so you will need to locate those separately. (the minisource is intended for Linux, for which the required libraries were readily available. The full source code was in SVN, but I don’t think that is available any more.
Source code for releases going back to 1.3.14 are available on GitHub, but 2.0.3 does not appear to be there: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases?after=Audacity-2.2.0-beta-20170901
I’m curious why you want to base your efforts on an obsolete version of Audacity.
It was the latest version when I first started using Audacity and I’m pretty much just used to it. It has its drawbacks like not being able to run version 4 Nyquist plug-ins and not having a number of useful features added in later versions but I can’t stand the jumpiness of the playhead and the lagginess of the output level monitor in later versions and I find the overall designs to be really unappealing. I know it seems picky and stubborn, but I find that I work faster and better in 2.0.3. Maybe someday when I’m familiar enough with the source code and with programming in general I can take all the things I like about 2.0.3 and combine them with the latest version to make a weird hybrid but for now I’m happy sticking with the older version.
Which of the more recent versions have you tried?
If you use a 64-bit Mac, you may want to try out 2.3.1 when it comes out (later this month) as it will be a 64-bit app.
I’ve tried 2.1.3 and just now 2.3.0. My Mac is in fact 64-bit so I will for sure keep my eye open for 2.3.1
As a side note,
So I can just take the library source code files from a more recent version’s source code and drag them in?
Several of the libraries have been updated over the past 6 years. You may be able to get suitable versions from 2.0.0 / 2.0.6.
https://code.google.com/archive/p/audacity/downloads?page=4
Does this suffice?
Those are all extremely old versions.
More recent versions of the code (from Audacity 1.3.12 to present) are available on GitHub: Tags · audacity/audacity · GitHub