Losing label focus

[girltech]

I am having a very annoying problem. I am converting my old school tapes to CD. When I am editing I will click to add a label but when I start typing
I don't see the label. I try everything to put focus on the track label but I can't get the focus back. The only thing that works is to close and re-open the
project. How do i keep this from happening? Thanks.

[steve]

Try pressing "Ctrl B" to create the label, then start typing (do not press anything else or click on anything between these two opperations).

[girltech]

Thanks I think I will stick to that. I appreciate the reply.

[girltech]

Ok I can use Ctrl + B to add the label, but if I decide later I need to edit it I can't click on it to edit it. How do I click on it to edit the label later?
Thanks again.

[steve]

A "Single" click directly on the text should do the trick.

[girltech]

No that's what I do and it doesn't give me focus to edit it. I have to close and reopen audacity. It's a minor inconvenience but
I wish I understood what I was doing wrong. I record one side of a tape and then I go back and listen to the recording and edit
out long pauses in the audio and I label different sections according to what we are discussing. On the Wiki page it says that if
you edit the track you have to make sure that when you select what you want to cut that you select the same portion in the label
so that the label doesn't end up in the wrong spot. So that's what I do. Anyway, thanks.

[steve]

On the Wiki page it says that if
you edit the track you have to make sure that when you select what you want to cut that you select the same portion in the label
so that the label doesn't end up in the wrong spot.

Ah ha! - I thought that you meant that you wanted to edit "the NAME" of the label (which is what I described).

To do what you are asking, there are two methods - use whichever is easiest:
In both cases, let's assume that you have a single audio track, with a label track below it.

1) Click on the audio track at the point that you want your selection to start - hold down the left mouse button - and drag tour mouse down and across, so that your pointer is as the end of where you want the section to start, and down onto the label track.

OR

2) Select an area of your audio track, then "Shift + Click" on the "information box" at the left hand end of the label track.

In both case you should have something like this:

Screenshot.png (2.43 KiB) Viewed 1423 times

Now if you delete that selection, it will remove the appropriate area from both the audio track, and the label track and the label ("test") will stay synchronized with the audio track.

Note however that you cannot adjust the lengths of labels in this way, so if you select an are such as this:

selection.png (4.95 KiB) Viewed 1423 times

then the length of the label will not change, and the end point of the label will be in the wrong place. However any labels later in the track will be adjusted correctly.

[waxcylinder]

Just to add to Steve's reply - do the deletion with the CTRL+K shortcut or Edit>Delete after the selection and NOT the Delete key.

Also you can get round the label length issue that Steve talks about by just creating labels at the gaps between tracks (i.e at the start of the track) and not bothering with labels that extend along the track. These work just as well for multiple export. Just don't forget the important label right at the beginning of the recording for Track-1.

WC

[girltech]

Steve, you had it right to begin with. I do want to edit the label name. I am editing a lecture tape so there are no
defined tracks like a music tape. To start with I was just clicking in the track label and typing a name. But for some
reason it stopped letting me do that. Then I went to using the Ctrl + B like you suggested. That works great. Except
if I need to go back later and edit the name of the label. Then I can't get it to gain focus so I can edit it. BTW, my labels don't
look like the one in your picture. Mine are red and have flags next to them. I only mentioned cutting pieces out in case that
was part of my problem. When I select pieces to cut out I use the cut button. Should I be using delete instead?
I'm sorry to be such a pain. Like I said if I close and reopen Audacity it will work right for a while and then I
will be unable to put focus back on the label. I'm sure it's user error but I just can't figure out what I'm hitting wrong.

[waxcylinder]

It looks to me like you are using Audacity 1.2.x (from the look of the label) - you have cobfused us by posting in the 1.3 section.

Label handling is much improved in 1.3 over 1.2 - it's one of the key reasons I moved to 1.3 many months ago now.

In 1.2 the only way you can edit a label is to click your cursor at the right-hand end of the text and work back with deletes till you get back to the error - then retype.

WC