Track Drop-down Menu commands

[steve]

Something like this?

SwapChannels.gif (98.23 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

[waxcylinder]

Curiously there was a French post just yesterday where the poster wanted to do exactly this.

WC

[steve]

Curiously there was a French post just yesterday where the poster wanted to do exactly this.

It's not particularly arduous to do manually.
Apply these commands in turn to the upper channel / track of the stereo pair. All of the commands are in the track drop-down menu

1. Split Stereo Track
2. Move Track Down
3. Make Stereo Track

The ease of doing this somewhat weakens the case for having this extra control, but if users are having trouble figuring it out then that is probably a + vote for the feature.
So, do we want this?

I presume that the French post has been answered?

[steve]

I now have a working patch - to apply it requires compiling Audacity from the source code - please ask if you want the patch

While working on this, I considered whether it should work with mono tracks. My conclusion was a resounding "No" because the behaviour would almost certainly be misunderstood by the people most likely to want to use it. Here's why:
The command is "Swap Channels". It is not "Swap Tracks".
A mono track has one channel (as documented in many places in the Audacity manual).

Let's say that you have two mono tracks. The upper track is set to "Left Channel" and the lower track is set to "Right Channel".
What is the expected behaviour if you select "Swap Channels" in the upper track?

As Gale previously hinted, I would think that many users would expect the two tracks to swap places (like they do if it were one stereo track).
That is NOT what the command says, and not what the command does.
The command is swapping "Channels" not "Tracks".
The command is being applied to the first track, which has one channel, set to "Left Channel". The correct behaviour, if "Swap Channels" worked with mono tracks, would be to swap the channel allocation for that ONE track. The first track would change from "Left Channel" to "Right Channel" and that is all.
The "correct" behaviour can already be achieved by simply selecting "Right Channel" from the drop-down menu, so not only is the behaviour likely to be confusing, it offers no practical benefit.

I am strongly in favour of things doing what they say on the tin.

[Gale Andrews]

I now have a working patch - to apply it requires compiling Audacity from the source code - please ask if you want the patch

How do you propose we check or test the patch without that?

Of course, "Swap Channels" on Left channel of a stereo track that has been split (pedants' version - so that it is now a mono track assigned to left) is ambiguous. But I think we agree that naive users wouldn't understand if it did what you say is the "correct" behaviour for it, and would understand if it did what I suggested.

To be more understandable, perhaps it should be called "Swap Stereo Channels" and only be available if the track that the command is requested on and the track below it say Left or Right. Even then, I'm not wedded to that idea. I was just thinking it might do something more useful than be greyed out on "mono" tracks. The main "benefit" I would see is that it might help the many users who don't understand that "Make Stereo Track" is no more than removing a divider and think it's a bug that it can reverse the audible channels.

So yes, "Swap channels" only on an unsplit stereo track is much better than not having it at all.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

I presume that the French post has been answered?

Where is the post? It isn't on the French forum.


Gale

[steve]

How do you propose we check or test the patch without that?

At a convenient time (not immediately before a new release) I was intending to post it to bugzilla as an enhancement patch, unless there is a better place to post it. The Mac OS X forum board is not really the appropriate place, but I'm happy to PM it to anyone that wants it sooner.

I think we agree that naive users wouldn't understand if it did what you say is the "correct" behaviour for it, and would understand if it did what I suggested.

Yes, but that is the ambiguity. Users that don't appreciate the difference between a track and a channel will probably expect tracks to move, whereas more knowledgeable users will expect only channels to move. As moving a track up or down is already supported, and changing the channel of a mono track is already supported, I think that it would be much better to avoid this possible ambiguity altogether and grey out the option for mono tracks.

[Robert J. H.]

Of course, "Swap Channels" on Left channel of a stereo track that has been split (pedants' version - so that it is now a mono track assigned to left) is ambiguous. But I think we agree that naive users wouldn't understand if it did what you say is the "correct" behaviour for it, and would understand if it did what I suggested.

To be more understandable, perhaps it should be called "Swap Stereo Channels" and only be available if the track that the command is requested on and the track below it say Left or Right. Even then, I'm not wedded to that idea. I was just thinking it might do something more useful than be greyed out on "mono" tracks. The main "benefit" I would see is that it might help the many users who don't understand that "Make Stereo Track" is no more than removing a divider and think it's a bug that it can reverse the audible channels.

So yes, "Swap channels" only on an unsplit stereo track is much better than not having it at all.


Gale

I'm wondering if this feature (which replaces but 3 commands) should be introduced prior to other track drop down commands that might have a potentially greater benefit or be used more often.
An example: a command "Move Track to Top" could easily replace 10 "Move Track Up" commands if one can't use a mouse.
The space for new commands is after all fairly restricted.
There are at least five commands that I never ever use: all view options and the three channel assignements once in a year.
However, this differs from person to person and the commands should therefore be selectable. The preference dialog is out of question. Hence, it would be better to have a "More Commands" sub-menu as last item in the list. There would be all available commands, ready for checking and unchecking. It is clear that all commands would be enabled by default (for a first installation, I mean).

[steve]

I've split this topic and moved it to "Adding Features".

An example: a command "Move Track to Top" could easily replace 10 "Move Track Up" commands if one can't use a mouse

I'm currently looking at doing that, and "Move Track to Bottom".

This will bring the menu count up to 19, which is probably still a manageable number of items in a menu, but we are running out of access keys,
After using "W" for "sWap channels", the only remaining letters are:
c, g, i, j, n, q, u, v, x, y and z.
None of these are well suited for "Move Track to Top" or "Move Track to Bottom".
How do the translators handle the issue of access keys?

One option would be to have ONE menu item for "Move Track" and then a sub-menu for "Up, Down, To Top, To Bottom".

[Robert J. H.]

I've split this topic and moved it to "Adding Features".

An example: a command "Move Track to Top" could easily replace 10 "Move Track Up" commands if one can't use a mouse

I'm currently looking at doing that, and "Move Track to Bottom".

This will bring the menu count up to 19, which is probably still a manageable number of items in a menu, but we are running out of access keys,
After using "W" for "sWap channels", the only remaining letters are:
c, g, i, j, n, q, u, v, x, y and z.
None of these are well suited for "Move Track to Top" or "Move Track to Bottom".
How do the translators handle the issue of access keys?

One option would be to have ONE menu item for "Move Track" and then a sub-menu for "Up, Down, To Top, To Bottom".

You could assign the free "U" for 'Move Track &Up' and thus free the letter "P" for 'Move Track to To&P'.
However, in translations, it is such handled that short cuts can be assigned more than once.
For example, in the German translation, the letter "S" is assigned to 'Spektrum' and 'Stereo Spur erstellen'.
Incidentally, the German translators will have the greater problem differentiating between 'Move Track Up' and 'Move Track to Top' (or down/bottom). It is currently translated as 'Spur nach oben verschieben' which can mean either of the English terms. It should rather be translated as 'Spur eins nach oben'. Anyways, this shouldn't be our concern.

A sub-menu for the move commands is not that attractive because the one step at the time commands have still to be applied several times in sequence to move a track to an arbitrary position and a sub-menu doubles the amount of keystrokes.
A possible solution would be to have the last command in the first line of the sub-menu - like in the effects menu - but the overall benefit is certainly arguable.