Audacity Forum

waxcylinder wrote: <<<so this thread should only be trimmed, not deleted>>>
Noted, and accordingly I've made it a sticky thread here in the FR section. We could instead move it to Audio Processing for retention in the forum, but that I think would render your reference in the Wiki incorrect Gale? - Peter 5Sep10.

Moving this to another board would of course break the link on Proposal Label Enhancements but if it's more normal to move a retained thread from this board to Audio Processing, please do that and change the link on the Wiki page accordingly.


Gale

stevethefiddle wrote: What I am suggesting would be consistent behaviour is that double clicking on a non-empty part of a label track would produce the same result as clicking on a non-empty part of an audio track.

In terns of what is selected, I find the behaviour of clicking on label text is a bit strange, though it works well enough.

This whole "between labels" thing has expanded my understanding of Audacity! I had never used "labeled regions" (I think what you call "clips"). After I had my "between labels" code "finished" (ha ha--to my needs at least--no error checking etc.) someone (I won't mention names) brought up labeled regions. I went back into my code and added error checking to exclude labelled regions. Now I see that I would need to extend the code to include them if I were ever to offer the code as a "feature". I will look at that the next rainy day (here in the Pacific Northwest the forecast is light rain out as far as the forecasts go!)

So given this color coded chart, let me see if I understand your desires: Right now, let us limit the discussion to a single mono or stereo wave track and one label track. For the sake of discussion, let's say I have six colors (green, blue, red, yellow, lavender and purple -- left-to-right). The somewhat rectangular areas are in the label track, the ellipses are in the wave track (I am not limiting the wave track double-click region to the ellipses just using the area as an example).

The current behavior is dependent on linking (just talking about labeled regions).

If linking is ON and I double click on any of the colored rectangles or ellipses all the audio is selected and the entire wave track is selected. (Note that you may place labels beyond the end of the audio.) This may not alway be true--it also seems to depend on the first aside below.

If linking is OFF (see aside) double clicking in an ellipse always selects all audio but no label. Double clicking a rectangle usually results in all audio from the start to the end of the last labeled region being selected (however on rare occasions all audio from the beginning of the first labeled region to the end is selected--I cannot get it to do this reliably but it happens and may have something to do with the aside).

[aside--I see a bug here, some state variable is not always being kept up-to-date. I can reliably get some inconsistent behavior based on the order in which I toggle the "link" icon--if it is ON when Audacity launches and I turn it OFF to test double-clicking I get one behavior, If it is OFF when I launch and I turn it ON I get different when I turn it back ON. I will post a Bugzilla if I can boil the exact steps down.]

Now, what I think should happen (all selections are INCLUSIVE--they include the sample at the label start and label end point):
Linking ON or OFF exhibits the same behavior.
double click (DC) in wave track anywhere--all audio selected no label area selected (as it is now)
DC in LT inside label region--blue rect--audio between the labels is selected
DC in LT between audio start and first label--green rect (could be discrete or region)--audio from start to 1st label track is selected
DC in LT between audio end and end of last label--lavender rect (discrete or region)--audio from end of last label to end is selected
DC in LT between 2 labels (discrete or region) audio between labels is selected (may be a case for EXCLUSION here)
DC in LT after end of audio--purple rect--tough one, select all audio or select from end of last label to end of audio (last is my preference)

Did I miss any cases? Have I got reasonable logic?

Now, what happens with multiple audio and label tracks?

[aside 2 I see another bug--the draw refresh rectangle is not calculated correctly all the time when linking is on:]

stevethefiddle wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:Personally I would like to select between labels by double-click in the label track.

For consistency with the behaviour of other track types, shouldn't double clicking within a label region select the region, and double clicking outside of any labels select from the first label to the last label?

What I was describing was of course for the case where at least one of the labels is a point label. We really do lack a "non-fiddly" way to select between point labels (assuming you regard dragging a region carefully to snap with another label as "fiddly") - and we need an accessible way to do it without a mouse, hence Ed's suggestion. If you think of a point label as being like a split line, between which we double-click to select, the analogy with current behaviour is I think very clear.

What double-click does when only region labels are involved certainly needs discussion. If there is nothing more useful for double-click inside a region label to do than select inside that region label, that would be fine and analagous as you say, though I think I would prefer it did "something else" given we have single-click in a region label to select inside it. For example, it could be a special case of multi-select that selects to adjacent labels either side (if there are any). I would envisage that double-clicking in the label track between region labels would select that space between them. Although that breaks the analogy with clicking in white space in the waveform which selects all of it, I think it's *much* more useful. It gives you an easy way to select that white space (which there isn't now) and to also make it a region label.

I've updated the Wiki again with this discussion.



Gale

Edgar wrote:Now, what I think should happen (all selections are INCLUSIVE--they include the sample at the label start and label end point):
Linking ON or OFF exhibits the same behavior.
double click (DC) in wave track anywhere--all audio selected no label area selected (as it is now)
DC in LT inside label region--blue rect--audio between the labels is selected
DC in LT between audio start and first label--green rect (could be discrete or region)--audio from start to 1st label track is selected
DC in LT between audio end and end of last label--lavender rect (discrete or region)--audio from end of last label to end is selected
DC in LT between 2 labels (discrete or region) audio between labels is selected (may be a case for EXCLUSION here)
DC in LT after end of audio--purple rect--tough one, select all audio or select from end of last label to end of audio (last is my preference)

Did I miss any cases? Have I got reasonable logic?

I think the cases presented are what I would expect though I think there are potentially better uses of double-click in the light blue rectangle than selecting inside it (I assume you mean this selects between the left and right boundaries of the region label)?

The other cases are where there are clips in the track, and all point labels or a mix of point and region labels. Double-clicking in the lavender regions should I think select from end of last label to end of the track (or the end of that clip if there are other clips). I assume that is what you mean. Similarly in the purple rectangle does your "end of audio" means the end of the white space after the end of the track? I would think DC in the purple rectangle should select end of track to end of white space.

Edgar wrote:I see another bug--the draw refresh rectangle is not calculated correctly all the time when linking is on

How are you getting tiles in the lower audio track? The first label track should mean that the lower audio track is in its own group. Have you got a screen shot of the whole window?



Gale

I would tend to go with *useful* over *consistent*, providing that it's not going to fall over when linking (or some other feature) has been developed further.

Unfortunately I think it is necessary to also throw into the equation "what happen when you click on a labels text".
When there are multiple tracks, there are multiple scenarios depending on which (if any) tracks are selected and whether linking is on or off.

For example, with this arrangement,
if you click on audio track 1, then click in the label text, with linking on, then audio tracks 1 and the label track are selected and track 2 is linked.
If you click on audio track 3, and then click in the text label, with linking on, audio track 3 and the label track are selected and audio tracks 1, 2 and 4 are linked.

If no audio tracks are selected and you click on the label text, then the region in all 4 audio tracks and the label track are selected whether linking is on or off.

Edgar wrote:[aside 2 I see another bug--the draw refresh rectangle is not calculated correctly all the time when linking is on:]

I think that is what is intended, though I would have thought that the link-shading should be drawn on white space in audio tracks.

Gale Andrews wrote:

Edgar wrote:I see another bug--the draw refresh rectangle is not calculated correctly all the time when linking is on

How are you getting tiles in the lower audio track? The first label track should mean that the lower audio track is in its own group. Have you got a screen shot of the whole window?

Sorry, I only kept the snippet. I think it has to do with starting with linking OFF and turning it on during the process. I fell out of a tree onto a barbwire fence a few minutes ago and sitting here is uncomfortable--I'm headed for the hottub and will try to recreate this later tonight or tomorrow. I think part of the problem is that currently there is no code to handle double clicks in label tracks. The eventual default handler might not be aware of linking.

BTW, just to clarify, just before I started all this test reporting I deleted my SVN directory and did a completely new checkout and build (Unicode Debug)--all these tests and screenshots are based on that.

Maybe we should as Al to glance at this thread?

Edgar wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote: How are you getting tiles in the lower audio track? The first label track should mean that the lower audio track is in its own group. Have you got a screen shot of the whole window?

Sorry, I only kept the snippet. I think it has to do with starting with linking OFF and turning it on during the process. Maybe we should as Al to glance at this thread?

I hope there isn't a problem with that. Actually I think your image showing tiling in the lower audio track is OK. I get the same if I have a selected label track below your lower audio track (or of course a selected audio track below it).

stevethefiddle wrote: I would have thought that the link-shading should be drawn on white space in audio tracks.

The sync-locked (tiled) selection over a waveform currently covers the same area as the full (untiled) selection. Do you think a selection region should always be drawn over white space? I'd concede that might seem logical if you consider space between labels in a label track as analogous to white space (where we do draw a region over that inter-label space). I think it's currently OK though.

I wasn't sure of the point you were making with your two-audio-one-label-two-audio-tracks image. I assume if you select between labels, that selection would obey the same rules for display of that selection in audio tracks as a selection inside a region label or any arbitrary region in the label track would?



Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:

waxcylinder wrote: <<<so this thread should only be trimmed, not deleted>>>
Noted, and accordingly I've made it a sticky thread here in the FR section. We could instead move it to Audio Processing for retention in the forum, but that I think would render your reference in the Wiki incorrect Gale? - Peter 5Sep10.

Moving this to another board would of course break the link on Proposal Label Enhancements but if it's more normal to move a retained thread from this board to Audio Processing, please do that and change the link on the Wiki page accordingly.

Duly noted - I will do some trimming and move the thread once it passes the normal one month hiatus with no further activity.

WC

Gale Andrews wrote:

Edgar wrote:I see another bug--the draw refresh rectangle is not calculated correctly all the time when linking is on

How are you getting tiles in the lower audio track? The first label track should mean that the lower audio track is in its own group. Have you got a screen shot of the whole window?

Tried sending PM as this is of little general interest but could see no easy way to attach a pic.

The following were the steps I had made before getting the imaged (sorry for the size wanted an unedited screengrab) result:

full screen conditions
linking OFF(OFF) at launch
gen tone
make 2 labeled regions (LR)
DoubleClick (DC) everywhere
linkin ON (ON)
DC everywhere (DCe)
gen noise
DCe
OFF
DCe
make 1 LR
DCe
ON
DCe
resize both wave (not label) tracks smaller
select region (note DO NOT make into LR)
resize both wave (not label) tracks larger
select region (note DO NOT make into LR)
resize both wave (not label) tracks smaller
BINGO I doubt all the above steps are necessary. I will play around and see if I can pare it down and if so will post to Bugzilla. I suspect it is some intermingled combo of turning linking on/off and resizing.