Audacity Forum

sure i know how a keyboard works, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that's how you would do it with your left hand. i'm just saying that pressing a key combination on the far right of the keyboard with your left hand is far from ideal.

Unlike Koz, I'm ambidextrous

It's not ambidexterity that's the problem. I live on the magnify keys during editing (on the left) and drag-selecting on the right. The very last step involves (in this scenario) trading places. I just got good at stopping dragging after the last sound and put up with it.

I seem to recall Cool Edit didn't do this. I can check.

Koz

Does anyone other than negev actually get "infinite dragging" beyond the end of the selection?
I've tested on Linux and Windows and drag selecting will extend for some distance beyond the end, then it stops. It does not extend infinitely. Is this behaviour different on Mac OS X with Audacity 2.x?

it's the same on osx, not indefinite but still far enough to be annoying when you're trying to edit something.

I presume that you're aware that:
1) You don't need to drag exactly to the end of the track to delete the end of the track. Dragging a little way past will work just as well.
2) If you drag too far past the end, while you have the mouse button held down you can drag back the other way to get the selection that you require.
3) You could start the selection from the end of the track and drag to the left.
4) Shift + K will extend the selection to the end of the current track
5) Shift + End will extend the selection to the end of the current project
6) You can adjust the length of a selection by "grabbing" one or other end of the selection (shift + left mouse button) and drag in either direction.
7) The right edge of a selection may be extended with shift + right cursor key (this stops automatically at the end of the project)
8) The right edge of a selection may be shrunk back leftward with shift + Command + left cursor

There are already a lot of selection options (see here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... ction.html ). I'm not convinced that we need even more selection options. If the current options are not exactly what you are used to I'm sure they will become more familiar as you use them.

steve wrote:I presume that you're aware that:
1) You don't need to drag exactly to the end of the track to delete the end of the track. Dragging a little way past will work just as well.

obviously, but the point is i pretty much only use Audacity to record vinyl records into the computer and always need to chop the silence off at the end. to make sure i get the right point and don't clip the end of a track i want to very quickly highlight from say 2cm before the end to the end and then zoom into it and maybe zoom further until i get exactly the end of the track. it's annoying that i can't just slam the mouse to right and know it will hit the end perfectly and then zoom in perfectly filling the display with the range i selected, instead i often get the range i selected as half of the waveform and then blank space in the other half, meaning i need to mess around selecting and zooming again. to get it right in one go you have to drag to the right and then carefully strain your hand to move it just past the end of the waveform cos you need to be able to see the end but not too far so you don't end up with a bunch of blank space. it's just silly, you're forcing the user to manually hone in on the end of a waveform using their hand when in 99% of cases a user snapping the mouse to the right just wants it to select up to the end of the waveform. i can't be the only person who does this, at least one person replied to this thread and agreed with me that it's annoying.

steve wrote:2) If you drag too far past the end, while you have the mouse button held down you can drag back the other way to get the selection that you require.

again you're forcing me, the user, to manually find the end of a track with my hand rather than just giving me the answer. computers are supposed to assist humans with work not create new work for them.

steve wrote:3) You could start the selection from the end of the track and drag to the left.

how is that any better? i still have to manually select /exactly/ at the end of the waveform, it's the exact same problem just from right to left instead of left to right.

steve wrote:4) Shift + K will extend the selection to the end of the current track

yes, but as we've already discussed that's a very cumbersome way of achieving what should be a very simple mouse gesture.

steve wrote:5) Shift + End will extend the selection to the end of the current project

same answer as 4

steve wrote:6) You can adjust the length of a selection by "grabbing" one or other end of the selection (shift + left mouse button) and drag in either direction.

you're just clutching at straws now trying to find alternative solutions to the problem than the right one. it's obvious how this should work, what does letting you select parts of a waveform that don't exist achieve exactly? how many of your users desire this behaviour over it stopping at the edge? i'm willing to bet it's 90/10 in favour of the latter.

steve wrote:7) The right edge of a selection may be extended with shift + right cursor key (this stops automatically at the end of the project)

great, so why can't you make the mouse selection do the same thing so i don't have to use a combination of the mouse and the keyboard for something so mind-bogglingly simple that should be easy with the mouse?

steve wrote:8) The right edge of a selection may be shrunk back leftward with shift + Command + left cursor

There are already a lot of selection options (see here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... ction.html ). I'm not convinced that we need even more selection options. If the current options are not exactly what you are used to I'm sure they will become more familiar as you use them.

i don't get why you can't see how bad this is, it's a really obvious interface problem. if you're concerned about adding new options why not just make it stop at the right edge unless you push the mouse a little further and then it can carry on into the blank space. this would make it much nicer to use for people like me who are just editing tracks and whatever the other people who do need to select past the end are doing can still do what they need too. i find it hard to believe the other groups use-case is more common.

steve wrote:6) You can adjust the length of a selection by "grabbing" one or other end of the selection (shift + left mouse button) and drag in either direction.

The shift key isn't necessary. Left mouse button alone will do this.

negev wrote:

steve wrote:6) You can adjust the length of a selection by "grabbing" one or other end of the selection (shift + left mouse button) and drag in either direction.

you're just clutching at straws now trying to find alternative solutions to the problem than the right one. it's obvious how this should work, what does letting you select parts of a waveform that don't exist achieve exactly? how many of your users desire this behaviour over it stopping at the edge? i'm willing to bet it's 90/10 in favour of the latter.

I always drag from empty space when applying a Fade In, and into empty space when applying a Fade Out. Why struggle to be precise if you don't need to? It's called ergonomic efficiency.

PGA wrote:

steve wrote:6) You can adjust the length of a selection by "grabbing" one or other end of the selection (shift + left mouse button) and drag in either direction.

The shift key isn't necessary. Left mouse button alone will do this.

The shift key is not necessary as long as the pointer is quite close to selection boundary.
If you use the shift key, whichever edge is closest to the pointer will be grabbed without needing to get the pointer in exactly the right place.
The reason that there are so many way to accomplish the task of selection is so that users may use whichever method suits them. You can't please all of the people all of the time, but in this respect Audacity manages to please most of the people most of the time.