Audacity Forum

I'm referring to moving the order in which tracks are displayed on the screen. If I'm working on a large project with 20-30 tracks, then any new tracks added, or tracks created by combining existing ones, is added to the bottom of the screen. I need to drag it up to where it belongs with the mouse, which is a laborious process.

I propose adding a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-Arrow, for example, to move tracks up or down. Highlight the tracks you want, then hit ctrl-up-arrow a few times to move them to where you want to go. This would also allow you to move several tracks at once, which Audacity currently cannot do.

In combination with this, I would suggest that clicking UNDO after moving a track would return it to its initial position, rather than simply undoing one movement. What I mean is, if you select a track and then hit ctrl-up-arrow 20 times to move it, then change your mind, you should be able to hit UNDO once in order to send it back to where it was, instead of hitting UNDO 20 times.

ravenswd wrote:I'm referring to moving the order in which tracks are displayed on the screen. If I'm working on a large project with 20-30 tracks, then any new tracks added, or tracks created by combining existing ones, is added to the bottom of the screen. I need to drag it up to where it belongs with the mouse, which is a laborious process.

I propose adding a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-Arrow, for example, to move tracks up or down.

The next release of Audacity has "Move Track to Top" and "Move Track to Bottom" in the Track Drop-Down Menu.

Even so you could argue there should be a preference as to where new tracks are placed in the track table. Do you want to argue that case?

ravenswd wrote:In combination with this, I would suggest that clicking UNDO after moving a track would return it to its initial position, rather than simply undoing one movement. What I mean is, if you select a track and then hit ctrl-up-arrow 20 times to move it, then change your mind, you should be able to hit UNDO once in order to send it back to where it was, instead of hitting UNDO 20 times.

It's already been tried. It freezes Audacity up when it has large numbers of tracks, at least on Windows. And there will be others who really do only one want undo to move by one track position.


Gale

ravenswd wrote:I propose adding a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-Arrow, for example, to move tracks up or down. Highlight the tracks you want, then hit ctrl-up-arrow a few times to move them to where you want to go. This would also allow you to move several tracks at once, which Audacity currently cannot do.

I think that should be possible, though there would probably need to also be a menu command (in the Tracks menu) otherwise a user may inadvertently press the keyboard combination and have no idea about "what just happened ?"

There is also potential for confusion between the proposed "moving selected tracks" feature and the current "Move Track" commands, which work on the track associated with the Track Drop-down Menu, irrespective of which tracks are selected. Naming the command "Move Selected Tracks Up" and "Move Selected Tracks Down" may be sufficiently clear.

I'm provisionally +1 for this feature.

Gale Andrews wrote:Even so you could argue there should be a preference as to where new tracks are placed in the track table. Do you want to argue that case?

From the lack of response I presume not, though I would be in favour of new tracks being added directly below the current selection, or at the bottom if there is no selection. Even if the user would prefer the new track to be at the bottom (which in my experience is much less useful), moving a track to the bottom is trivial now that we have a Track Drop-down Menu command to do that.

ravenswd wrote:In combination with this, I would suggest that clicking UNDO after moving a track would return it to its initial position, rather than simply undoing one movement. What I mean is, if you select a track and then hit ctrl-up-arrow 20 times to move it, then change your mind, you should be able to hit UNDO once in order to send it back to where it was, instead of hitting UNDO 20 times.

I'm -1 for that part.
If I wanted to move a track up 20 places and I accidentally moved it 21 places, I'd be much put out if Undo moved it all the way back to where it started.
I think that the new "Move Track to Top" and "Move Track to Bottom" in conjunction with the proposed keyboard shortcuts will alleviate the stated problem to a large degree.

steve wrote:

ravenswd wrote:I propose adding a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-Arrow, for example, to move tracks up or down. Highlight the tracks you want, then hit ctrl-up-arrow a few times to move them to where you want to go. This would also allow you to move several tracks at once, which Audacity currently cannot do.

I think that should be possible, though there would probably need to also be a menu command (in the Tracks menu) otherwise a user may inadvertently press the keyboard combination and have no idea about "what just happened ?"

There is also potential for confusion between the proposed "moving selected tracks" feature and the current "Move Track" commands, which work on the track associated with the Track Drop-down Menu, irrespective of which tracks are selected. Naming the command "Move Selected Tracks Up" and "Move Selected Tracks Down" may be sufficiently clear.

I'm provisionally +1 for this feature.

I think it's reasonable, and "Selected" needs to be in the name of the "Tracks" Menu command to distinguish from Sort Tracks which doesn't depend on selection.

However if we were to do that I think we should also allow mouse drag of selected multiple tracks up and down.


Gale

Also note that moving the single focused track (the one with the yellow border) can be achieved now with a pair of keyboard shortcuts: SHIFT + M then U to move up one track, or SHIFT + M then D to move down one track. It would be nice to make that a single shortcut, as has been discussed before.


Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:However if we were to do that I think we should also allow mouse drag of selected multiple tracks up and down.

That might be useful, but it's a bit confused/confusing. When dragging tracks with the mouse, it is the track information panel that needs to be dragged, which is a completely different interface element (and different code) from the selected audio. You can only click on one track information panel at a time.

Currently, if you have (for example) 4 tracks, with a selection in tracks 2 and 3, you can drag track 1 up or down without losing the selection:
* Hold down the shift key
* Click and release on track 1 (adds track 1 to the selection)
* Click and drag track 1 (removes track 1 from the selection and drags to a new position in the Track Panel.
If clicking and dragging moved selected tracks it would not be possible to move a track with the mouse without losing the current selection (unless the track to be moved happened to be the only track selected).

Gale Andrews wrote:"Selected" needs to be in the name of the "Tracks" Menu command

Yes.

Gale Andrews wrote:Also note that moving the single focused track (the one with the yellow border) can be achieved now with a pair of keyboard shortcuts: SHIFT + M then U to move up one track, or SHIFT + M then D to move down one track.

Or with the Menu key (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menu_key) rather than Shift+M
and from 2.0.6:

• Menu key then T (or Shift_M then T) to move the track with focus to the top
• Menu key then B (or Shift_M then B) to move the track with focus to the bottom

steve wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:However if we were to do that I think we should also allow mouse drag of selected multiple tracks up and down.

Currently, if you have (for example) 4 tracks, with a selection in tracks 2 and 3, you can drag track 1 up or down without losing the selection:
* Hold down the shift key
* Click and release on track 1 (adds track 1 to the selection)
* Click and drag track 1 (removes track 1 from the selection and drags to a new position in the Track Panel.

Yes, if you still have SHIFT held down when you click and drag track 1.

steve wrote:If clicking and dragging moved selected tracks it would not be possible to move a track with the mouse without losing the current selection (unless the track to be moved happened to be the only track selected).

Agreed, but in that case how about CTRL + drag to move all selected tracks.

So in the case you give with tracks 2 and 3 selected, SHIFT-click on track 1 would include it in the selection, then CTRL + drag would drag the selected tracks 1, 2 and 3.


Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:Agreed, but in that case how about CTRL + drag to move all selected tracks.

I'm not keen - it's becoming "logically messy". There is no logical or intuitive clarity about what should happen if, as in the example I gave, track 2 and 3 are selected and track 1 (not selected) is being dragged. Whether track 1 moves or not, the behaviour of dragging with a mouse becomes different from the behaviour of using the track drop down menu, unless we change the behaviour of the Move Track commands in the Track Drop-down menu to include selected tracks (which I don't think should happen).

steve wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:Agreed, but in that case how about CTRL + drag to move all selected tracks.

I'm not keen - it's becoming "logically messy". There is no logical or intuitive clarity about what should happen if, as in the example I gave, track 2 and 3 are selected and track 1 (not selected) is being dragged.

As I see it, holding CTRL while clicking would not change selectedness or focus, and you have to be dragging one of the selected tracks to move all the selected tracks. So with SHIFT held down or CTRL held down while dragging unselected track 1, unselected track 1 only is dragged as now.

steve wrote:Whether track 1 moves or not, the behaviour of dragging with a mouse becomes different from the behaviour of using the track drop down menu, unless we change the behaviour of the Move Track commands in the Track Drop-down menu to include selected tracks (which I don't think should happen).

I agree the Move Track commands in Track Drop-Down Menu should continue to work on the focused track only.

I'm only suggesting an alternative track drag behaviour. I don't think the current drag behaviour is completely intuitive now, where you have to use SHIFT and click twice to drag without changing selectedness. Once you learnt it, CTRL + drag to drag all selected tracks from any of the selected tracks would be quite intuitive I think. I'd also suggest CTRL + drag to move all selected clips up or down (missing feature).


Gale