Audacity Forum

I am currently running Audacity 1.3.3 Unicode on Mac OS X 10.5.3. I am considering an update to the new beta 1.3.5 (Universal Binary), but from this forum which I just joined, it sounds like a 1.3.6 version is about to emerge (or is that Windows only?) I am a Professor Emeritus of Music, and composer, but have been learning a little editing in my retirement. I used the stable version 1.2.5 for awhile to try to improve the sound on old audio cassettes of my music and performances, but then switched to the advanced beta (not because I was advanced), but in hopes of getting better noise reduction, etc. And I did!, although I certainly don't know how to use many of the other functions yet. But I am learning.

Some primitive installation and other questions:

1. Should I uninstall the earlier version which is in a Applications folder entitled Audacity 1.3.3 before installing 1.3.5, rather than attempt to overwrite?
2. Would it be better to call the folder merely Audacity in the first place?
3. In 1.3.3 I was unsure of where the appropriate location of the "temporary files" should be set? Can anyone advise me, as this question will certain arise again in setting up the new version. (In the 1.2.5 version, I don't remember being asked that question. I believe it was selected automatically, but I don't know where it actually was!)
4. Will files saved in 1.3.3 open and then be saved in a new format?
5. Is it necessary to update the libmp3lame-OS10-universal-3.97 files? I have the libmp3lame.dylib file.
6. I assume the nyquist, and plugin folders which can with 1.3.3 are new and included in the 1.3.5 release, or are they the same?

Many thanks to any advice any of you can offer me.

If you have a version and install that works for you, I would firmly advise staying right where you are. The new version will be 1.4.x. Right now the programmers are wrecking 1.3 with an eye toward the 1.4 debut.

All the versions past about 1.3.3 are minor patches that break major features of the program (See: "All my menus went gray for no reason!"). Audacity is an all-volunteer product force which means there is no adult supervision. If they do manage to squirt 1.4.0 out the door, I would take that long-overdue sabbatical to Tanzania until at least 1.4.2.

Remember when you do a major product change, that the preference files need to be changed, too...

--------------------------------------
Trash Mac Audacity Preferences
/SystemDrive/Users/koz/Library/Preferences/audacity Preferences
Windows Preferences are burned into the Registry. Abandon Hope Ye Who Enter...
-------------------------------------

People drill Audacity into the mud during normal but ill-advised operation and then trash and reinstall the program only to find the original mud right there in the new program. In general, you can trash just the preference file and start over at first birthday. You don't have to change the program. Windows isn't quite the Dante's Inferno that it used to be. The programmers made a preference file outside of the Dreaded Registry.

1. Yes I would take the old one out first...but save it, like, on the desktop somewhere.

2. I make application folders called "Audacity1.2.5," Audacity1.3.4b" and pile the appropriate programs and support into each one. I don't know that you can't install all the different versions of 1.3.x that way, but I know you can cause a personal, thermonuclear explosion by trying to run more than one.

3. You can look in Audacity > Preferences > Directories to figure out where it went. /tmp/audacity1.2-koz is in the root directory of your(my) System Drive and may be difficult to see in a normal directory search. There are tricks if you're up to using the Mysterious Terminal.

4. Projects Saved in any one Audacity may or may not open in a different version. Exported Files in one version will open up all over the world.

5. They try to keep the lame versions consistent across the versions within one single platform. One thing that kills people is getting the machine version and lame version correct and then blow the Audacity version. Somebody thought it was a good idea to have some versions of Audacity run (badly) on the wrong computer. That person will be shot later.

6. I have no idea.

Koz

Many thanks for the thoughtful, informative, well-advised, and also quite amusing response. I think I'll plan my trip, but I have decided on Istanbul , at least until I see what is going on with this new version by watching these postings. Version 4, I will dream of in the meantime.

<<<I see what is going on with this new version by watching these postings.>>>

Or you could volunteer to help. How well do you write? It' seems pretty well, although you could be getting one of the students to help you unsplit your infinitives. The instruction preparation is/was the only thing holding up the 1.4.0 release. Of course, this was before they started "improving" the program.

Programming the stacks, routines, and trash collection is the fun part. Writing the instructions is best left to Someone Else. You could be that Someone Else.

Koz

Actually I have been writing a great many research documents lately, but these postings usually catch me late at night or when my brain is already fried, so it is entirely plausible that one may find examples of "interesting" grammatical structure. In the instance you cite - not really a split infinitive, but not exactly a sentence from Keats either. But it happens to the best of us: {from your reply - It' seems pretty well}. Anyway, I have no experience with the technical side of the Mac system, such as the terminal. I know no unix commands and can't imagine that I would be that helpful to the project at this stage. Perhaps as I learn more, I might be able to be productive in the future. I do admire the team working on this project, and you have clearly contributed a great deal.

On the subject of grammar, I am currently studying Turkish. If you know anything of Altaic languages, you will know that the grammar is extremely difficult for the Western speaker. Every concept is roughly backwards from what we would consider a normal thought process, and an entire sentence may be rendered in a singular word due to the agglutination process which the language uses. (And no, I am definitely not ready to write the manual in Turkish)

Cheers, and thanks again.

kozikowski wrote:If you have a version and install that works for you, I would firmly advise staying right where you are. The new version will be 1.4.x. Right now the programmers are wrecking 1.3 with an eye toward the 1.4 debut.

All the versions past about 1.3.3 are minor patches that break major features of the program (See: "All my menus went gray for no reason!"). Audacity is an all-volunteer product force which means there is no adult supervision. If they do manage to squirt 1.4.0 out the door, I would take that long-overdue sabbatical to Tanzania until at least 1.4.2.

Koz

Koz,

you are more than slightly overstating your case here I feel - and being a little unfair to the developers too

I have been using 1.3 since the 1.3.3 release (I wanted the timed recordings and improved label handling) - and have had 1.3.5 installed and used since it's release - and it's proved emminently stable (albeit on Windows XP in my case - not MAC).

The post 1.3.3 patches are not designed to "break major features of the program" - they are made, rather, to fix bugs that have been reported by the Beta users and to add new functionality that has been designed by the developers or requested by the users (this is exactly what Beta releases are for in the software development cycle). Ok I admit that sometimes fixing a bug in one place sometimes causes a bug in another - but by-and-large Beta releases tend to improve with release number and tend towards the final release cut. 1.4.0 will only be 1.3.x - where x is a number larger than five.

Summary: 1.3.5 is already a vastly superior product to 1.2.x - and at this stage in the development cycle there is only a small risk to the Beta user (disclaimer: your mileage may vary ....). The releases to avoid for serious production work will be the early 1.5.x Beta releases.

WC

wildsage2 wrote: 4. Will files saved in 1.3.3 open and then be saved in a new format?

WS2: yes - 1.3.3 saves in a new project fomat - it is a data-structure which is an extension of the 1.2 format so you get what developers call forwards compatibility but not backwards compatibility.

I.e. 1.2 projects should all open in 1.3 (pay no attention to the dire warning msg) - but 1.3 projects will not open in 1.2 (and this includes projects that were 1.2, opened in 1.3 and the Saved in 1.3). But as Koz points out, if you export a 1.3.x project as WAV/AIFF - then you can open that WAV/AIFF file in 1.2.x.

WC

<<<being a little unfair to the developers too>>>

I know how this works. Developer/programmers hate deadlines. Not having them is one of the pleasant features of self-directed projects.

However, the down side of that is infinite feature creep and patch leapfrogging. While the program daddies are busy with the fun task of "my subroutine is more stable than yours," does anybody remember why 1.4 isn't out the door already?

The instructions.

In five languages.

And three platforms.

Written against constantly moving code.

Koz

And then add in: the feature creep of the "Summer of Code" projects .....

WC

<<<And then add in: the feature creep of the "Summer of Code" projects ..... >>>

We need a "Summer Of Instruction Book Writing." We know how to write code.

My hero is Tina.

Koz