Why occurs the Configuration Reset without confirmation / warning?

Feedback and Discussion Forum Audacity 3.x Feedback and Reviews
1

It is mentioned explicitly in the Manual:
(https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/reset_configuration.html)

Reset Configuration [Accessed by: Tools > Reset Configuration]
This resets your Audacity configuration (preferences, export settings and toolbars) to default settings.
Be aware that this command acts > immediately > with no dialog and no choice of actions or chance to abort.
Undo > is not available for this command.

I do not understand why the reset works in this strict way. Maybe that an Undo option is not possible because of technical reasons. (?) But what could be the reason that no confirmation dialog or warning is offered to the user? I cannot see any, but only an enormous danger of destroying your customized configuration - caused e.g. by a simple wrong mouseclick.

2

Or maybe move it off to its own isolated part of the menu. I don’t know that I would have put it next to Apply Macro and Take Screenshot.

And add the Are You Sure??
Koz

3

But this is likely to annoy some possibly many users.

Think about the number of complaints we get about the “Save project before closing” message on exit - including from yourself Koz :wink:

Peter.

Update: but basically I agree so I will write up an enhancement request for it.

4

“Save project before closing”

When’s the most likely time to hit Reset by accident? When you’re in a hurry and can least afford the delay.

– Move Reset to a more isolated part of the panel.
– Add “Are You Sure.”
– Add UNDO.

Any one of those will make it better than it is.

Koz

5

Basically I agree - and I will be writing an enhancement request for this.

a) I think it’s in perfectly OK place in the menu - it is a “Tool” for the user to use

b) I support an “are you sure” - but with a “do not show this message again” (which itself would be reset to “on” by a Reset Configuration - and with a warning that there in no Undo

Iwill mention the possibility of an Undo in the enhancement request, but I think that is less likely to be implemented as that will be a lot more development work I’m suspecting.

Peter.

6

Logged as GitHub Feature request 1578

https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues/1578
A warning should be issued to the user when using Reset Configuration - with the option to abort

And I flagged this on the Audacity Discord channel to draw attention to it.

Peter

7

Perhaps a bit of hyperbole?

“Risk” is commonly defined as the product of the probability of something, and the severity of what may occur.

In this case, the probability of accidentally clicking the wrong item in the tools menu could easily be reduced (with a confirmation dialogue), though I don’t believe that is very high risk - in all the years that the menu item has existed, I have never accidentally clicked it, and we’ve had zero reports of anyone else having problems with it until Aug 31, 2021 (this topic).

Regarding the severity; that seems to be extremely low. Nothing happens that can’t be reverted easily, so the chance of permanent damage is zero. It seems to me that the worst that can happen as a result of (somehow) accidentally clicking “Tools menu > Reset Configuration” is a little inconvenience.

Nevertheless, the risk could easily be reduced, with little impact on other users, by opening a confirmation dialogue. A conformation dialogue also has a benefit of informing users about the feature.

Another possible benefit of opening a dialogue window rather than resetting preferences directly, is that useful options could be provided. For example, there are occasions when I would find it useful to reset effects / plug-ins back to factory defaults. There could also be an option to create a backup of all current preferences. I would see these features more as “nice to have” rather than “an enormous danger”.

8

:sunglasses: Thank you very much.

PS:

So let’s characterize it as something in between: e.g. “possibly not insignificant troubles”. :smiley: