Audacity Forum

Hi,

I've downloaded the latest Audacity ( i think it's 1.3.13 beta not 1.3.14 beta) and with the previous one I'd just discovered that I didn't have to keep an empty project file open to stop exiting Audacity. In Edit/Preferences/Interface there's a check box and: 'Closing last window quits Audacity' and when I unchecked it I didn't have to launch Audacity at all a new window opens and I don't have to keep an eye on the last any more because as soon as I close it a new file opens. It stops the whole Audacity application closing down by automatically opening a new file once the last one is closed.

I can't find the menu option on this latest Audacity . . . can anyone help?

Thanks

SilvaTixi wrote:I've downloaded the latest Audacity ( i think it's 1.3.13 beta not 1.3.14 beta) and with the previous one I'd just discovered that I didn't have to keep an empty project file open to stop exiting Audacity. In Edit/Preferences/Interface there's a check box and: 'Closing last window quits Audacity' and when I unchecked it I didn't have to launch Audacity at all a new window opens and I don't have to keep an eye on the last any more because as soon as I close it a new file opens. It stops the whole Audacity application closing down by automatically opening a new file once the last one is closed.

I can't find the menu option on this latest Audacity . . . can anyone help?

1.3.14 Beta has not been released yet. You can check your version at Help > About Audacity.

The Preference you mention is removed in 1.3.13. From the 1.3.13 Release Notes:

(Windows and Linux) The window Close button and other system close or shutdown commands now quit on closing the last window. File > Close now always clears to a new, empty project.

So to get the behaviour you chose in the previous Preferences, just use File > Close (or CTRL + W). We changed this because having a preference for window closing behaviour was completely non-standard. We spent literally hours every week answering questions and complaints about it.



Gale

Hi, thank you for your quick reply. When I discovered this behaviour, it was a relief to me because it meant that the whole application wouldn't be shutting down on me anymore. All the Ms Office applications stay open after the last tab is closed down. Each tab is a separate file and all the files can be closed down and the applications can be kept open and ready for use. This is what I was used to until I discovered Audacity and began to use it.

I can understand how people who wanted to close a file and expected the application to close as well must have felt. I think it's very funny how they would have reacted at new windows popping open so very quickly.

I went through the opposite frustration trying to keep the application open. I had an older computer and Audacity kept crashing on me because I'm very fast with Ms Word and I discovered the hard way that Audacity is very different from the Ms Office applications. It only likes to perform one function on one file at any one time.

I think it's lovely that while so many people are being satisfied, that I still have the choice of the opposite preference to them. After all, we can't all be in the same boat!

I've grown very reliant and Audacity 1.3.12 beta and while I find the newer versions very exciting and I feel eager to try them, I think I will stick with this one for now

Audacity doesn't use separate tabs for different projects, but separate windows. I don't know any Windows application that clears to an empty workspace when you click the window close button [X] on the last window. I presume this is what you are doing in 1.3.12, thinking it's like closing a tab.

I'm afraid we are never going back to that window closing preference again, but there is an argument for having project tabs. Do you want to vote for that?



Gale

Hello,

In a way Audacity already has a tabs facility. I suppose you can describe what I was saying as a tabs facility. In Ms Word, for instance, when you have several documents open, they do appear as tabs in the taskbar. When the mouse is hovered over the tab in the task bar, the whole list of titles of open projects opens up.

When Ms Word is launched, it launches with an open un-named document, ready to use. Excel does this as well, it opens with an open spreadsheet which is really a set of three in a worksheet (I think) but what I was saying about closing the application or just a document without closing the whole application is about the two close buttons being present at any one time. Ms Word has the red [X] close button which is for the whole application but beneath that, next to the little search engine there is a smaller blue one which only closes the document that is being viewed or clicked on. Like Audacity projects, every document has its own little search engine and its own little 'close' button and its own toolbars but, with MsWord and Excel, when the last one is closed an empty frame remains with its own toolbars and with the option of either opening a new blank document or a saved document or using the main red 'close' button to close the application. This latter thing is the only thing that was making Audacity difficult for me because I kept forgetting, recording on the last file and closing it and then had to re-launch the application all over again.

Audacity 1.3.12 saves me from opening new files myself when it just automatically opens a new file when I close the one I'm finished with. It really helps me when I would have opened a new one myself. It speeds up my work. It is a non-standard function that helps me and I think it was a very clever time-saving one. I wish other applications had adopted it and I'm sorry that it won't be included again.



Best Wishes

SilvaTixi wrote:Ms Word has the red [X] close button which is for the whole application but beneath that, next to the little search engine there is a smaller blue one which only closes the document that is being viewed or clicked on. Like Audacity projects, every document has its own little search engine and its own little 'close' button and its own toolbars but, with MsWord and Excel, when the last one is closed an empty frame remains with its own toolbars and with the option of either opening a new blank document or a saved document or using the main red 'close' button to close the application.

Audacity doesn't have separate little close buttons per project in each window. It has one project per window. You were treating the Audacity red close button as a tab button, but it's a window close button like in Word.

I'll add your vote for tabbed projects which is what you really want, otherwise in 1.3.13 or later, please use CTRL + W or File > Close if prefer the mouse.


Gale

Thanks