Audacity Forum

First of all, I would like to say Audacity is one of the best programs I've ever used and owned. Its free, simple but powerful, has all the features I need and none that I don't. I've used it for years and will continue to for a long time.

Also, this is my first post here in the Audacity forum, glad to have found this place. This is pretty cool.

OK....on to the bad stuff, the annoying features....

Audacity is near perfect, except for 2 major annoyances:

#1) The first annoyance is the unfixed "float/unfloat" Control Bar (the one with "play", "rec", "pause",etc).

- Everytime I go- to "File" in the corner or even more ofter, when I pick the "Zoom" magnify tool or the "Selection" cursor tool, I accidentally "unhook" the Control Toolbar from the docked position to the "float" position. Then I have to redock with the "View -> Dock Control Toolbar" command. I have to do it all the time, and its really annoying. How do I lock that damn Control Bar in there so I can't accidental undock it?

#2) The second annoyance the "Zoom" feature.

- Sometimes when I'm zooming out or even in, I make that "rectangle area" and accidental zoom in again (when I'm trying to zoom out the whole track) and accidentally zoom out again (when I'm trying zoom In on a specific spot). Again, it happens all the time, and sometimes it feels like I'm in a loop of zooming then rezooming then zooming out because of those sensitive "rectangular zoom boxes".

How to do make them less sensitive?

I still enjoy using them, sometimes, but other times I just wanna zoom in/out on the ENTIRE track not just a small dotted line rectangle. Any ideas?


Your help is very appreciated.

Your loyal Auda user,
- TrueHC

P.S. The version I'm using now is 1.2.6 Maybe its been fixed in a newer version....if so, let me know! Thanks.

There have been a great number of enhancements and new features in Audacity 1.3.12.
There will be no updates to Audacity 1.2.6 as this was the final version in the 1.2.x series and all development on 1.2.x ended some years ago.

You can have Audacity 1.3.12 and 1.2.6 installed at the same time, which will probably be useful while you become familiar with the new version.
You cannot run both versions simultaneously.
Audacity 1.2.6 cannot open projects that have been saved by Audacity 1.3.12.

Because of the number of new features you will probably need to refer to the documentation to get up to speed with the new version. There is a manual included with Audacity 1.3.12 (Help menu) and lots of addition on-line documentation (see links below this post).

You can get Audacity 1.3.12 from here: http://audacityteam.org/download/

Ok, thanks Steve.

If I may ask, do you know if those specific "problems" have been addressed in the 1.3.12 version? Has anyone posted suggestions to these sometimes annoying features?

I guess I should just download it, explore and find out...

Thanks for the link to the new version.
-TrueHC

Both of the features that you mention have been completely reworked and in my opinion work much better in the 1.3.12 version.

TrueHerbCrystal wrote:... - Sometimes when I'm zooming out or even in, I make that "rectangle area" and accidental zoom in again (when I'm trying to zoom out the whole track) and accidentally zoom out again (when I'm trying zoom In on a specific spot). Again, it happens all the time, and sometimes it feels like I'm in a loop of zooming then rezooming then zooming out because of those sensitive "rectangular zoom boxes".

The zoom control buttons shopuld help you
1) To fit the whole project to the screen use the one on the far right of the set (the 4th one) - icon is a magnifying glass with a horizontal line with two arrow heads pointing inwards - keyboard shortcut is CTRL+F
2) the 3rd zoom button fits the current selection to the screen - k/d shortcut CTRL+E - icon is the mag. glass/straight line/ arrow heads in the line
3) zoom buttons 1 and 2 zooom in and out.
4) Another useful k/b shortcut for zooming is CTRL+2 - which returns you to "normal" zoom level

For more detail see this page from the 1.3/2.0 manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Zooming

WC