Cannot move ahead while playing

[yacahuma]

Hello,

I think this is a bug in usability. If I play an audio, and then try to scroll horizontally, audacity will not let me. For example if a have a 3 hour clip and started playing at the beginning, I should be able to keep listening, but scroll all the way to the end to see the graph. Then, if I just click on the graph, audacity keeps playing at that point. Right now, I have to stop. move the scroll bar , and then play again.


Thank you

[kozikowski]

You probably want to stay away from the "B" word around developers.

No, you don't. You can use the bottom scrollbar while you're playing and then click in the upper time bar to go instantly to that click point and Audacity will keep playing.

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

If I play an audio, and then try to scroll horizontally, audacity will not let me. For example if a have a 3 hour clip and started playing at the beginning, I should be able to keep listening, but scroll all the way to the end to see the graph. Then, if I just click on the graph, audacity keeps playing at that point. Right now, I have to stop. move the scroll bar , and then play again.

The "Update display while playing" box in Tracks Preferences controls this. If checked, you cannot drag the scrollbar while playing, but the project scrolls itself while playing. If unchecked, the playback cursor moves off screen when you are zoomed in and you can no longer see what is being played.

So the answer is really to always zoom out if you want to be able to click in the Timeline to move the playback position. Alternatively, go to the Playback Preferences and change the long and short seek times to something longer. These are the keyboard keys for seeking:

Short Seek Left during Playback is LEFT or ,
Short Seek Right during Playback is RIGHT or .
Long Seek Left during Playback is SHIFT + LEFT or SHIFT + ,
Long Seek Right during Playback is SHIFT + RIGHT or SHIFT + .

See http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/ke ... #transport .

I kind of agree it's unfortunate that having playback scroll means that you cannot drag the scrollbar at all. Ideally the scrollbar would stay where you dragged it to for a set period of time until you clicked in the Timeline to restart playback. @Peter, I'll add this a "Feature Request". Not exactly a bug, though.


Gale