1.3.10 delete to end: change in display causes more work

[roga]

I have just moved up from 1.3.7 to 1.3.10

There seems to be a change in display when deleting to end, in 1.3.7 after a deletion (to end) the screen would refresh itself and I would see data displayed at the current zoom interval

In 1.3.10 following a delete to end the screen no longer refreshes and I have to manually seek left.

This creates more work for me when trying to trim the end of a recording by a few secs as the old behaviour was more friendly when trying to fine tune the end of a piece of audio

roga

[billw58]

Problem confirmed on 1.3.11 Mac

Steps to reproduce:
Generate tone 300 seconds
Skip to end
Zoom in twice
Select from 4:30 to 5:00
Zoom in twice
Edit > Delete
Cursor remains off screen
Zoom out then zoom in will bring cursor back to centre of displayed track.

-- Bill

[steve]

Is it a problem or a feature?

If you select the entire track and zoom then zoom to the end of the track and delete the selection, it is reasonable to expect that the user was wanting to see the part of the track that has been zoomed. With the old behaviour the view would refresh and the zoomed region lost. With the current behaviour the zoomed region is still in view. This seems more logical to me.

If the user wants to see the new end of the track after the delete then it's simply a matter of zooming to the required view before deleting.

It's probably worth also noting that the current behaviour fixes an inconsistency in the 1.3.7 version. In 1.3.7 the behaviour changes if you have more than one track whereas in 1.3.11 the behaviour is the same whether there is one track or multiple tracks.

[billw58]

Good points, Steve.

As I pointed out, you can get the cursor back on screen by zooming out until it is on screen. Then you can zoom in to whatever level you want. This is easier than scrolling.

Still, having the cursor go off screen and having no automatic refresh or scroll is disconcerting.

-- Bill

[Gale Andrews]

Problem confirmed on 1.3.11 Mac

Steps to reproduce:
Generate tone 300 seconds
Skip to end
Zoom in twice
Select from 4:30 to 5:00
Zoom in twice
Edit > Delete
Cursor remains off screen
Zoom out then zoom in will bring cursor back to centre of displayed track.

-- Bill

OK thanks, Bill. Yes the problem is there on Windows XP too. You can simplify it to:

* generate 30s tone
* select 25s to end
* zoom in 3x
* delete

Is it down to our change in mid October?

* fix mouse pointer separating from clip when dragging the last clip in the
timeline, and prevent change of timeline when dragging that last clip

* use TrackPanel::ScrollIntoView() to prevent space at end of track being
removed wheh hitting END

Those were desirable changes. Like Steve says, this seems a bit of an edge case to me (unless there's another case that roga found) - I'd have thought if you wanted to fine tune the selection to delete you'd want to keep it within the scroll, in which case there isn't a problem.

I notice there are other longer-established but not so bad cases where the cursor disappears but not the waveform:

* Generate 30s tone
* select 10-15s
* zoom in 3 times
* Delete
* where's the cursor ?

* Generate 30s tone
* hit End key
* click at 26s
* zoom out 2 times
* zoom normal
* where's the cursor?

Certainly I think zoom normal should always keep the cursor on screen and that one is perhaps a bit worse than the other issues mentioned here.


Gale

[steve]

There is a very minor issue that relates to this which I think IS a bug:

1) Create a track
2) Click on the track at around 10 seconds
3) Zoom in on the cursor
4) Delete the track

The cursor is now "stuck" at around 10 seconds. ("Skip to Start" button is not available because there are no tracks)

5) Move the horizontal scroll bar all the way to the left and the cursor will jump back to t=0

I've not noticed any ill effects from this "bug" but I doubt that this behaviour is intentional.

[billw58]

The cursor will disappear from view whenever the following conditions are met:

1) the selection extends beyond the left edge of the track display
2) a cut or delete operation is performed.

If "Zoom Normal" would always centre the cursor on the screen (or at least show the cursor when centering was not possible e.g. cursor at 0) then that would be a quick way to get the cursor back. Or perhaps a "centre cursor on screen at current zoom level" button? I seem to recall other cases where the cursor goes off-screen and it would be convenient to get back to it.

I think I understand why Audacity behaves this way. In some cases (a multi-track project), the user might want the display to stay at the current location and zoom level after the delete. In other cases (a single-track project) the user might want the display to scroll to show the cursor. You can't have it both ways, so a design decision had to be made which behaviour was preferred.

-- Bill

[steve]

If "Zoom Normal" would always centre the cursor on the screen (or at least show the cursor when centering was not possible e.g. cursor at 0) then that would be a quick way to get the cursor back.

Press the END key.

[billw58]

Press the END key.

That works when you've deleted something off the end, but does not work when you've deleted something in the middle of a track.

-- Bill

[steve]

That works when you've deleted something off the end,

I thought that was what we were talking about

but does not work when you've deleted something in the middle of a track.

Well it depends on which part of the track you want to see. If you want to see the current cursor position you can use "Edit menu > Move Cursor > To Selection Start" or "Edit menu > Move Cursor > To Selection End". I know that's not very convenient but you can set a keyboard shortcut. Personally I just press Ctrl and spin the mouse wheel.