Moving track focus w/o selecting prior track as well

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi there.

If I have a track selected, then pressing the UP arrow will cause the vertical bar to select the track above it as well. However, if I have something on my clipboard and try to paste it then it will only paste the audio to the starting track. If I press Shift + UP (note these are my hotkeys, I don’t remember if I changed them from the default) then it will again select the track above, but this time it will paste audio to both tracks. The unfortunate thing is I do not want to paste audio to the previous track. I want a clean separation from one track to the next.

I have been through Preferences to try to find an appropriate command, but cannot seem to find one. Any help?

Basically what I’m trying to achieve is to get all the audio from every track on one linear track (not mixed). Dragging sounds from Windows Explorer to Audacity defaults to this behavior of creating a separate track for each, which is fine. I have a Macro-enabled mouse that I can program hotkeys into, and I have a fairly efficient one setup right now, but when I have over 100 sounds/tracks it isn’t as effective.

2

To toggle the “selection” status of the track that currently has focus, press “Enter” (the default shortcut for toggle selection).

So, with standard shortcuts, the sequence to copy the selected audio in one track and paste to the track above would be:

Ctrl + C (copy)
Enter (toggle selection)
Up
Enter
Ctrl + V (paste)

It is also possible to script complex macro command which may then be accessed via a custom keyboard shortcut. For example, the following script can by run in the Nyquist Prompt effect and will cut the selected audio from one track, and paste into the final track (assuming that the final track is an appropriate type of track)

;version 4
;type tool

(setf last-track (1- (get '*project* 'tracks)))
(setf commands
  (list "SelSave:"
        "Cut:"
        "LastTrack:"
        "SetTrackStatus: Selected=1"
        "SelRestore:"
        (format nil "SelectTracks:Mode=Set Track=~a" last-track)
        "Paste:"))

(dolist (cmd commands)
  ;(print cmd)
  (aud-do cmd))

To be able to run the script from a keyboard shortcut, you would add the appropriate “headers” to make the code into a Nyquist plug-in (see: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Plug-ins_Reference#header). The plug-in can then be installed and a custom shortcut added in the normal way.

3

Thanks