Audacity could be more helpful when paused ...

[steve]

Clearly people who pause and select some audio they had just heard with the intention of deleting it or applying an effect to it are not intending to play from the cursor or start of the selection, but from the paused playback position.

I doubt that that is a safe assumption.

When users write to the forum to say that edit/effects don't work, they often do not realise that playback was "paused".

More often than not I would think that the intention of pausing (when Pause was intended) would be to stop playback and leave the cursor in the playback position rather than it jumping back and them losing their place. Not that they necessarily want to resume playback from the exact same position (which may or may not exist after an edit) but simply so that they can see where playback was up to so that they can make a selection in the right place. As an example, if you are listening to a recording and you know there is a particular sound that you want to delete but you do not know where it is.

Audacity can not edit audio in a sensible way while the audio stream is active. Whether or not other programs are able to do this can help us to make an informed choice but it is not relevant to what can be implemented in Audacity. By allowing edits/effects to be applied when the Pause button is pressed we are allowing users to jump out of pause mode. The pause button should return to the up position. Automatically returning to the pre-edit Pause state is imo doing a lot more than we should and creates an unnecessary paradox (that would need to be solved) if the previously paused audio no longer exists.

I think it is reasonable to drag a selection during playback, then pressing DELETE stops playback and deletes the selection.....

Perhaps a "reasonable" behaviour, but problematic. Audacity plays back with blocks and buffers of audio data. During playback a short amount of audio is read from a block of data and buffered in RAM while playing back audio that is already in the buffer (fifo) and keeping track of where all of the other data blocks are (in accordance with the structure of the project). Deleting audio changes the project structure - data blocks are no longer where they were previously. The changed state needs to be backed up and the revised version written to the current project structure, but the current project structure is in use. Audacity is very likely to lose count of which block is next - the "next" block may no longer exist. nAs Audacity has not been written for real time operation I think that any "live editing" is likely to be dangerous because several of the required actions become time critical, but were not designed to run in a time critical way.

[Gale Andrews]

Clearly people who pause and select some audio they had just heard with the intention of deleting it or applying an effect to it are not intending to play from the cursor or start of the selection, but from the paused playback position.

I doubt that that is a safe assumption.

When users write to the forum to say that edit/effects don't work, they often do not realise that playback was "paused".

Perhaps I should have said "people who intentionally pause, knowing what it does".

Most of the people I count for feature request votes for this did realise they were pausing or said afterwards they would want to pause and edit that way. They sometimes cite tape machines as what they were thinking would allow this. Cut a piece just behind where you paused (what you had just heard) and resume playback from where you were.

If as people often say, they wanted to delete before the point they paused at, in that case "stopping, selecting and deleting" would resume playback at much the same place as "pause, select up to the pause point and delete" would. It's just that they are not thinking of a model where they need to stop.

I would also hazard a guess that since many player apps change the Play button to Pause when playing, some people may indeed not be intending to pause and may be mistaking the Pause button for Stop.

More often than not I would think that the intention of pausing (when Pause was intended) would be to stop playback and leave the cursor in the playback position rather than it jumping back and them losing their place.

Not that they necessarily want to resume playback from the exact same position (which may or may not exist after an edit) but simply so that they can see where playback was up to so that they can make a selection in the right place. As an example, if you are listening to a recording and you know there is a particular sound that you want to delete but you do not know where it is.

I am sure thinking the Pause might Stop and Set Cursor is in some users' minds too. Wavosaur's Pause button stops and sets cursor; Pause and Play both play from the position the Pause button stopped at, but there is a Play from Start button too.

If you are not going to allow editing while the stream is active, I think there is a strong case for our Stop and Set Cursor to be a Transport Toolbar button. It's not really a Pause button, but I suspect some users don't realise that Pause (named as such) leaves the stream running (despite the indication in the playback meters). I could see a "Stop and Set Cursor" button as a second yellow Stop button with a different graphic, and the Pause button coloured green instead of blue to indicate the stream was still active.

Something like that would be far better as an alternative Transport Toolbar setup than the "ergonomic" or not layout which I doubt few people care about. I think it would reduce the requests for "editing while paused" to some extent, but not stop people asking who knowingly want to edit a paused stream.

By allowing edits/effects to be applied when the Pause button is pressed we are allowing users to jump out of pause mode. The pause button should return to the up position.

Yes, if we were stopping the stream. The green playback triangle would have to removed too on Stop, at least in its current form.

Automatically returning to the pre-edit Pause state is imo doing a lot more than we should and creates an unnecessary paradox (that would need to be solved) if the previously paused audio no longer exists.

It's a decision you have to make. CoolEdit accepts the paradox to the extent of allowing editing while the stream is active (paused or even when playing in the case of deleting audio).

I think it is reasonable to drag a selection during playback, then pressing DELETE stops playback and deletes the selection.....

Perhaps a "reasonable" behaviour, but problematic.

I'm not so sure. All I envisage is that an editing action forces Stop then Audacity behaves as normal. This should be no different to what happens when you choose File > Exit when a stream is active. Audacity obligingly presses Stop for you.

Audacity has not been written for real time operation.

Even now Audacity could stop the stream to perform a speed change requested on the Play-at-Speed slider, then restart playback by itself instead of the user having to Stop and restart. It only doesn't do so because of a Pulse audio/PortAudio bug. I know that is restarting playback from the start position and not the stop position, and we are not manipulating audio data before restarting playback, but I mention it anyway.


Gale

[waxcylinder]

Let's remember the reason for starting this thread - it wasn't about the ability to do "stuff" while paused (how many folk actually want/need to do that?) - it was about helping hapless folk like the thread linked to in the initial post who can't figure out why "stuff" doesn't work (including me occasionally).

And we all know that this happens lots of times on the forum postings ...

It's even worse if you try to use keyboard shortcuts for stuff while inadvertently paused - as then you get no graying-out visual cue - Audacity just sits there and dumbly does nothing - no error message, no beep, nothing. How unhelpful is that?

Peter

[steve]

It's even worse if you try to use keyboard shortcuts for stuff while inadvertently paused - as then you get no graying-out visual cue - Audacity just sits there and dumbly does nothing - no error message, no beep, nothing.

I think that it would be useful to give a system beep for all invalid keyboard actions, but currently there seems to sometimes be a cross-platform problem with producing a system beep (possibly a limitation in wxWidgets) so it may not be possible to address this at present.

They sometimes cite tape machines as what they were thinking would allow this. Cut a piece just behind where you paused (what you had just heard) and resume playback from where you were.

The usual procedure with tape editing would be to pause. Rock the tape forward/back by hand to find the exact position and mark it on the tape. Then pull out some of the tape from the take-up reel so that there is a loop of tape ahead of the playback head and make the edit (razor blade and block). The edit is "ahead" of the playback head (on the right of the playback head). Take up the slack tape and check that it is still threaded correctly. The edit is still before the playback head. Press play - the edit is played and playback continues.

The point of describing this in detail is that for the tape analogy, the playback position after editing is typically before the edit (not that digital editing should adhere to editing techniques on obsolete equipment).

I am sure thinking the Pause might Stop and Set Cursor is in some users' minds too.

Just a thought - Would it be beneficial if "Stop" when paused left the playback cursor in the current position rather than returning it to the previous playback position?

[kozikowski]

The usual procedure with tape editing would be to pause. Rock the tape forward/back by hand to find the exact position and mark it on the tape.

The usual procedure for electronic video editing is to pause, rock the "tape" back and forth with either the grab-and-scan or the arrow keys and then set the In point. That's one reason so many people get lost when they encounter our weird and missing tools.

That's not to say the video editors are always straightforward and simple. One of the larger editors has single line editing, where you can recover and "slide" edits around because the "discarded" material is still back there. In effect, instead of cutting the tape you folded it and after lunch, you can unfold it.

Those are pretty serious editors and you need to keep all that in your head while you're editing. That was my assurance that I wasn't going to be an award-winning editor. I know people who can do that.

Koz

[steve]

That's one reason so many people get lost when they encounter our weird and missing tools.

I don't think that I've rocked an audio tape forward and back in the last 15 years. Mostly what I do these days is "point and press B".
The "C" key shortcut is a good one - never had anything like that with tape.
Ctrl+Z is another good one - I'd have killed for an equivalent with tape.
Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V. Life is sublime
Do I miss the old days? Not at all - the scars have healed nicely

[kozikowski]

Video still works like that. I suspect because somebody followed the tape video convention and it just worked, so nobody thought to mess with it. There are non-conventional editors out there and they have a "reputation."

"Oh, you're using FrammisEdit?" "I'm so sorry."

There are worse things to follow for a model of operation. I think the old Final Cut followed the pause/stop convention we've been talking about. When I SpaceBar Stop, I want the picture on the screen to freeze, not have the cursor flash backward 93 minutes. That's what the Home key does.

Another one I miss is the offset entry.

"OK, there's the first frame of the :30 commercial."

+
3 0 0 0
[enter]

...and there's the last frame without ever touching the mouse or leaving the keypad.

Commercials are those annoying product promotions that ITV puts in the middle of shows, in case you never found it necessary to go beyond BBC4.

Koz

[steve]

Commercials are those annoying product promotions that ITV puts in the middle of shows, in case you never found it necessary to go beyond BBC4.

I rarely venture beyond Radio 4

[Gale Andrews]

Let's remember the reason for starting this thread - it wasn't about the ability to do "stuff" while paused (how many folk actually want/need to do that?)

At least 30 and counting, without interpreting too liberally. It's a common request on [email protected] So this discussion is about giving them a discoverable alternative, probably without actually keeping the stream running.

it was about helping hapless folk like the thread linked to in the initial post who can't figure out why "stuff" doesn't work (including me occasionally).

I don't think the developers will want to have warnings for all the actions that are unavailable when a stream is active.

Windows doesn't beep when you click on greyed out menus (I turned system sounds on and turned their volume up to check).

Clicking on the Pause button produces a Status Bar tooltip which could give a warning about editing not being possible, but it is not as simple as that because we would only want the warning when pausing a stream, not just when pressing Pause.

So I think it would be more productive at a minimum to discuss making Stop and Set Cursor discoverable (perhaps giving it a Transport button).

If we were to allow an Edit or Effect command to first invoke Stop when playing or paused with a selection present, then probably those menus would have to be enabled while playing or paused. It could probably be a preference called "Instant Edit" or some such.

It's even worse if you try to use keyboard shortcuts for stuff while inadvertently paused - as then you get no graying-out visual cue - Audacity just sits there and dumbly does nothing - no error message, no beep, nothing. How unhelpful is that?

I don't think it's unusually unhelpful as programs go. Operating an unactionable shortcut does not trigger a Windows beep. The developers are not going to accept popups for all invalid shortcut presses.

The answer could lie in changing Transport Toolbar button behaviour or appearance as I described. I guess that Pause doing Stop and Set Cursor may be too big a behaviour change after all this time.

Would it be beneficial if "Stop" when paused left the playback cursor in the current position rather than returning it to the previous playback position?

I think it may take some getting used to if you really wanted to go back to the previous playback position, and would only address a subset of the problem.

We do have a little unused space in Transport Toolbar with the removal of the CleanSpeech button. So we would not have to reduce the Transport Toolbar button width too much to add another button without eating into Meter Toolbar in the initialized layout.



Gale

[Robert J. H.]

Sometimes not available (or rather not existing) menus are indicated by a Windows-pling.
Press alt-q for example...
Microsoft had the "wonderful" idea to remove menus when they do not make sense in a certain context (see word Excel etc.).
Ok, I am no fan of those ribbons (bad accessible and unpredictable to seek through).
But somehow it could be worthwhile to remove all menu entries that can't be used during playback/pause (or the whole main menu bar?).
All key accesses that include alt- would thus force a pling - or end up in the Play menu.
But maybe this is different for each platform.