Where have the Windows gone in 2.1.2?

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

Hi all,

I’ve been using Audacity for about six years. I upgraded my copy the other week to 2.1.2 on OSX El Capitan (Version 10.11.3).

With this new release I suddenly have no ‘Window’ to choose from in the top menu bar i.e. It should have the following options:

  • File
    Edit
    View
    Transport
    Tracks
    Generate
    Effect
    Analyse
    Window
    Help

And now Window is gone. I’ve searched around in preferences, but this is a stock copy of Audacity 2.1.2. I’ve done nothing to it. Even using the keyboard shortcut to jump between open windows does nothing (and I’ve got three Audacity windows open at the moment).

Any help greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

2

That’s explained in the release notes. I’ll admit those can be a little hard to find, so I’ll provide you with a link:

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Release_Notes_2.1.2

(OS X) The “Window” menu is not currently available.

3

Thank you for the reply Cyrano. I’ve never seen the Window menu fail to be present in any previous versions, so it really threw me for a loop. Hope it comes back soon as I’m usually flipping between 10+ windows. I’ll keep an eye on the updates for when it comes back in but for now i’ll use another program.

Many thanks.

4

Can you imagaine how it threw me - I acquired my first ever Mac on Saturday (for Audacity QA testing) get 2.1.2 installed run it and switched to full screen window - poooof! menu bar disappears. Reboot and then fire up Audacity in reduced window and happily menu bar back at the top of the screen.

WC

5

Did you try scrolling your mouse pointer right to the top of the window and leaving it hover there for a moment. The menu bar drops down again becoming visible. To bring it back to normal, tap the green button again, in the top left…

6

I’ve tried both solutions. Neither seems to work for me…

7

Oooh - I’ll try that (I’m still coming to terms with the menu bar being detached from the app and being at the top of the screen - and being the menu bar for the app that is actually active).

Peter

8

I understand that it was a limitation in wxWidgets 2.8 (and so Audacity 2.1.1 and earlier) that pressing the green button did not go full screen and hide the Audacity menu bar.

Anyway, the missing Window menu is nothing to do with what you experienced.


Gale

9

The keyboard shortcut COMMAND and ` (backtick) works for me in 2.1.2.

Gale

10

That’s a particularly nasty shortcut for anyone on a non-English keyboard. It’s probably the single most confusing character on any keyboard and in a lot of programming languages on any OS. Even the spell checker for English doesn’t know the word “backtick”…

It’s disabled in some languages and the key for the backtick or backquote is in different locations.

If it doesn’t even work in the Finder, you need to go to System preferences, Keyboard, Key combinations and enable it before it can work in Audacity.

It works for me in Mavericks, with Audacity 2.1.2 on a Belgian Azerty keyboard, set to “French numerical”.

Note that it’s the key with the UK Pound sign on top, not the “accent grave” (not present on Belgian azerty) or “accent aigu” (under the number 4), on a Belgian Macbook Pro keyboard.

11

Oh that’s cool, it does work. But its still a pain having to cycle through windows if you’ve got multiples open. One press too many means you cycle past the one you want and have to go back round again, infuriating.

This has forced me into using Garageband now, which has been giving me a headache all day. Simple my ass, but veeerrrry slowly starting to get a feel for it.