Zoom Normal (Cmd+2) cursor position

[cmac185]

I've hunted around and can't find what the expected cursor behavior is for the "Zoom Normal" (Cmd+2) function.

Most of the time when I'm editing I'm working around the center to center right portion of the track display. When I use the Cmd+2 to get the zoom back to a good play zoom level sometimes, well actually most of the time, the cursor goes to about an 1/8" of the left hand edge of the track. Other times it is maybe at the 1/3 window width from the left position and other times it is various places, always left of center however.

It may be doing exactly as expected, but I haven't figured out what it uses as a criterion for where it ends up and if I did I maybe could do something in my editing so it ended more where I wanted it and not almost at the left hand edge which is the usual position. I'm normally wanting to play the section I've just edited so I want to move the cursor a little left of the edit point and then start play. It's hard to do that with the cursor so far to the left. I end up zooming in, Cmd+1, one level then back out Cmd+3 to center the cursor then I can easily position it a point 1/2" or so left of the edit point and then hit play.

My preference would be that the Zoom Normal would keep the cursor in the current position on the display as well as in the track and just adjust the track display to match.

If anyone can shed some light on this I would appreciate it.

Cliff

[steve]

I'd not really noticed this before as I rarely use those keyboard shortcuts (I prefer to use mouse wheel zooming, which I think is Command + Mouse wheel on a Mac, if you have a mouse wheel).

The behaviour that you describe is the intended behaviour. Command + 2 "Reverts back to Audacity's default zoom" (http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/zo ... horizontal) The behaviour has been the same since at least Audacity 1.2.6 (probably earlier), but of course that does not mean that it is the most useful behaviour

I agree with your point that it would be more useful if the command zoomed to the default "zoom level" but retained the cursor position in view rather than scrolling back to the start, so I'll move this topic to the "Adding Features" section of the forum.

[cmac185]

I'd not really noticed this before as I rarely use those keyboard shortcuts (I prefer to use mouse wheel zooming, which I think is Command + Mouse wheel on a Mac, if you have a mouse wheel).

The behaviour that you describe is the intended behaviour. Command + 2 "Reverts back to Audacity's default zoom" (http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/zo ... horizontal) The behaviour has been the same since at least Audacity 1.2.6 (probably earlier), but of course that does not mean that it is the most useful behaviour

I agree with your point that it would be more useful if the command zoomed to the default "zoom level" but retained the cursor position in view rather than scrolling back to the start, so I'll move this topic to the "Adding Features" section of the forum.

Thanks Steve. While we're at it could I add a request for an user setting in Preferences to set the "default" zoom level?

Cmd+1 and Cmd+3 both bring the cursor to the center of the displayed track. It seems reasonable to me that Cmd+2 should either do the same or at least keep the cursor at the same display position as it was.

My initial question, which I didn't phrase too well, was how to figure out where the cursor would go since it is not 100% consistent in going the the extreme left.

I find the Cmd+2 functionality useful since it, in one keystroke, puts the zoom back to a reasonable level for playing even though I've had to zoom in with multiple Cmd+1s to do the editing.

Cliff

[Gale Andrews]

I've noted these two requests, but Zoom Normal could not leave the cursor horizontally where it was for example if you were zoomed in at less than 8 or 10 seconds into the track, unless we were to scroll the track to show white space before zero. Even enabling the Tracks Preference "Enable scrolling left of zero" does not automatically cause Zoom Normal to show white space before zero when you were zoomed in only a few seconds into the track.

When zoomed in almost at the end of the track, I agree it is not useful to show a lot of white space after the end of the track after running Zoom Normal, which happens now.

By the same token I don't see it would be useful to show lots of white space before the start of the track after running Zoom Normal from a zoomed in position close to the start of the track.


Gale

[steve]

I've noted these two requests, but Zoom Normal could not leave the cursor horizontally where it was for example if you were zoomed in at less than 8 or 10 seconds into the track, unless we were to scroll the track to show white space before zero. Even enabling the Tracks Preference "Enable scrolling left of zero" does not automatically cause Zoom Normal to show white space before zero when you were zoomed in only a few seconds into the track.

When zoomed in almost at the end of the track, I agree it is not useful to show a lot of white space after the end of the track after running Zoom Normal, which happens now.

By the same token I don't see it would be useful to show lots of white space before the start of the track after running Zoom Normal from a zoomed in position close to the start of the track.

I'm unclear from your comment whether you see the same behaviour as I see.

Example:

• Generate a 3 minute Chirp.
  The track is fitted to the window
• Select from about 2 minutes to about 2 minutes and 5 seconds.
• Zoom Normal.
  The view now shows from 0 to about 9 seconds and my selection is not visible without a lot of scrolling.

Would it not be more useful if the start of the selection was visible ?

[cmac185]

Gale Andrews wrote:
I've noted these two requests, but Zoom Normal could not leave the cursor horizontally where it was for example if you were zoomed in at less than 8 or 10 seconds into the track, unless we were to scroll the track to show white space before zero. Even enabling the Tracks Preference "Enable scrolling left of zero" does not automatically cause Zoom Normal to show white space before zero when you were zoomed in only a few seconds into the track.

When zoomed in almost at the end of the track, I agree it is not useful to show a lot of white space after the end of the track after running Zoom Normal, which happens now.

By the same token I don't see it would be useful to show lots of white space before the start of the track after running Zoom Normal from a zoomed in position close to the start of the track.

I agree that the white space doesn't need to be there, but it wouldn't bother me, especially if the cursor was where I expected it. I hadn't thought of those sort of extreme end scenarios until now, however normally it wouldn't be a problem as the track would be fully filling the space. I guess the question is whether it is worth the effort to eliminate the white space and move the cursor far enough to compensate for the space for something that, at least to me, would be a rare situation. Making the cursor more usable for 99% of the editing time is a higher priority as far as I am concerned. I also think that having the cursor in a consistent position every time is far more useful than making its position inconsistent for the occasional time the white space would appear at the end of the track.

Also, in response to Steve's question I agree to "Zoom Normal" and lose your selection is not only not useful, but really frustrating to the user. The more that I think about it, for me at least, any zoom must keep the cursor/selection at least in the visible part of the track and because Zoom In and Zoom Out centers the cursor/selection Zoom Normal should do the same thing.

Cliff

[waxcylinder]

Yes this has always bugged me too


+1 for the current cursor position being re-instated mid-waveform display when the "Zoom Normal" Ctrl+2 is invoked.

But what do we do when the currently selected cursor position is not on scren anyway and we are zooming elsewhere (without moving the cursor)? Ensure the Zoom Normal keeps what is in the centre of the zoomed waveform remains in the centre of the normal-zoomed waveform display?

And what behaviour for Zoom Normal would we expect/like when a region is selected rather than a point cursor?

There are a couple of workarounds.

1) After the Zoom Normal press Play then Stop immediately (shortcut Space and then Space). This will restore your current cursor postion to the left end of the displayed waveform and then it's a simple matter to use the slider to restore it on-screen

2) After the zoom Press Ctrl+B (to create a label at the current cursor position) then Tab to move to that label. Not so useful if you already have a label track with lots of labels.
Update:After pressing the Ctrl+B then press Space - focus remains on the label track so Space now is not interpreted as a shotcut for Play/Stop, rather a blank character is inserted in the new label - but more importantly the label is moved mid-waveform display - voila. Simple matter now to right-click on the temporary label and dismiss it with a Delete Label.


Peter

[steve]

... what behaviour for Zoom Normal would we expect/like when a region is selected rather than a point cursor?

While playback is stopped, the playback cursor is at the start of the selection.
During play, record or pause, the playback cursor can be anywhere.

... what do we do when the currently selected cursor position is not on scren anyway and we are zooming elsewhere (without moving the cursor)?

There are three possibilities that come to mind that I think would be acceptable (so any of these would be better than now, but I prefer the third option):
1) Always zoom around the playback cursor so that the playback cursor position is brought into view.
2) Keep the same time position for the left edge of the visible track area.
3) Attempt to keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track area, but pin the earliest time to zero (don't show time before zero).

[Gale Andrews]

I've noted these two requests, but Zoom Normal could not leave the cursor horizontally where it was for example if you were zoomed in at less than 8 or 10 seconds into the track, unless we were to scroll the track to show white space before zero. Even enabling the Tracks Preference "Enable scrolling left of zero" does not automatically cause Zoom Normal to show white space before zero when you were zoomed in only a few seconds into the track.

When zoomed in almost at the end of the track, I agree it is not useful to show a lot of white space after the end of the track after running Zoom Normal, which happens now.

By the same token I don't see it would be useful to show lots of white space before the start of the track after running Zoom Normal from a zoomed in position close to the start of the track.

I'm unclear from your comment whether you see the same behaviour as I see.

Example:

• Generate a 3 minute Chirp.
  The track is fitted to the window
• Select from about 2 minutes to about 2 minutes and 5 seconds.
• Zoom Normal.
  The view now shows from 0 to about 9 seconds and my selection is not visible without a lot of scrolling.

Yes I see what you see, and that behaviour seems bad to me. Like you I rarely use Zoom Normal, though. I sometimes use it after zooming in, but if I do zoom in I usually use zoom out afterwards as many times as needed.

Would it not be more useful if the start of the selection was visible ?

If I zoom in a few times after selecting from 2 mins to 2 mins 5 seconds in your example, I do still see the selection after using Zoom Normal. But the rule that determines the exact location of the selection in the view is non-obvious to me.

If I had zoomed in then used View > Go to Selection End to centre the end of the selection in the view, then ideally after Zoom Normal I would still want the end of the selection centered, not the start. Perhaps if only one selection edge was visible before Zoom Normal, Zoom Normal should centre that visible edge, and if both edges are visible, center the midpoint of the selection?

That still leaves the question of what Zoom Normal should do when the cursor point or selection is within the first few seconds of the track. We do not want to switch on "Enable scrolling left of zero" automatically because it will be too confusing for most users.

Gale

[Gale Andrews]

... what do we do when the currently selected cursor position is not on scren anyway and we are zooming elsewhere (without moving the cursor)?

There are three possibilities that come to mind that I think would be acceptable (so any of these would be better than now, but I prefer the third option):
1) Always zoom around the playback cursor so that the playback cursor position is brought into view.

I don't think Zoom Normal should force an off-screen cursor or selection back into view but I do think View > Go to Selection Start and View > Go to Selection End should both centre the cursor in the view when there is no selection. It is not useful for those commands to (by default) select all and destroy the existing cursor position.

When the "Select all... if none selected" preference was off, we could either grey those commands out (as now) or enable them and have both centre the cursor.

2) Keep the same time position for the left edge of the visible track area
3) Attempt to keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track area, but pin the earliest time to zero (don't show time before zero).

I much prefer keeping the same time position of the centre of the visible track area, because this is what the zoom in and out buttons do.

If it is necessary to move the central time position or the cursor/selection to avoid showing white space before zero, do so.


Gale