Audacity Forum

I think Steve should answer the below before there is a proposal:

Gale Andrews wrote:I think this is drifting away from the subject "Options Menu". I don't like that idea very much if all "options" were there instead of in the menus they belong in.

Or is the idea that Options is the "Easy Preferences" (irrespective how often you want to change them) and only needs a tick mark in the menu, so it's off or on - then Edit > Preferences contains nothing from "Options" and only has more advanced preferences (but lots of them)?

Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:I think Steve should answer the below before there is a proposal:

Gale Andrews wrote:I think this is drifting away from the subject "Options Menu". I don't like that idea very much if all "options" were there instead of in the menus they belong in.

Or is the idea that Options is the "Easy Preferences" (irrespective how often you want to change them) and only needs a tick mark in the menu, so it's off or on - then Edit > Preferences contains nothing from "Options" and only has more advanced preferences (but lots of them)?

May I refer back to the original post:
"An "Options" menu provides convenient access to options that a user may frequently change. It is far more convenient than having to go digging in "Edit > Preferences"."

That is what I'm requesting.

steve wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:I think Steve should answer the below before there is a proposal:

Gale Andrews wrote:I think this is drifting away from the subject "Options Menu". I don't like that idea very much if all "options" were there instead of in the menus they belong in.

Or is the idea that Options is the "Easy Preferences" (irrespective how often you want to change them) and only needs a tick mark in the menu, so it's off or on - then Edit > Preferences contains nothing from "Options" and only has more advanced preferences (but lots of them)?

May I refer back to the original post:
"An "Options" menu provides convenient access to options that a user may frequently change. It is far more convenient than having to go digging in "Edit > Preferences"."

That is what I'm requesting.

There is still no answer as to whether these Options are excluded from Preferences or not, for example "Spectrogram window size" that you say should be in an "Options" menu but is currently in Preferences.

We currently have a number of "option" items in the Transport Menu that are also in Preferences. Similarly, is your suggestion to move those duplicated items into an "Options" menu which would be the only place they could be found?



Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:There is still no answer as to whether these Options are excluded from Preferences or not, for example "Spectrogram window size" that you say should be in an "Options" menu but is currently in Preferences.

I think it depends on how we view "Preferences". What and who are "Preferences" for? Why do we have the current limit of "no more preferences"?

We currently have a Catch 22 in that proposed features cannot be implemented unless optional, but we are so afraid of "Preferences creep" that new preference are not allowed. How do we get round this silly obstacle?

steve wrote:We currently have a Catch 22 in that proposed features cannot be implemented unless optional, but we are so afraid of "Preferences creep" that new preference are not allowed. How do we get round this silly obstacle?

Discuss it at AU14 possibly ...

Peter

steve wrote: What and who are "Preferences" for? Why do we have the current limit of "no more preferences"?

We currently have a Catch 22 in that proposed features cannot be implemented unless optional, but we are so afraid of "Preferences creep" that new preference are not allowed. How do we get round this silly obstacle?

IMO, Preferences should be for things that don't need changing often, but IIRC the argument has also been made that complete Preferences including things that may need changing often are more conveniently found by VI users in Preferences. We should confirm that with David B.

I am not opposed to a modest expansion of Preferences but I agree there has to be strong justification for new items until there can be "Simple" and "Advanced" Preferences.

I have seen "Simple Preferences" or "Quick Preferences" as a menu item in a few applications. I think this is the same as your "Options" Menu but I tend to prefer items that need to be changed quickly being in a related menu. So I think Software Playthrough should remain in the Transport Menu and Spectrogram quick-change options should be in the View Menu or perhaps the Track Drop-Down Menu.

Following on from that, do users ever want different window sizes or frequency ranges per track? This isn't possible now - even zooming the frequency range on the vertical scale on one track changes the vertical zoom on all other tracks in the project. I can see that an equivalent vertical scale for frequency analysis might make sense though.


Gale

BUMP

Steve are you going to write a Proposal for this (or develop it)?

Or do you want me to archive it?

Peter

waxcylinder wrote:Or do you want me to archive it?

I think this can now be archived.
James is looking at hierarchical preferences for his new Track Panel, which will probably make this discussion obsolete, but otherwise we can resurrect this topic.