Audacity Forum

steve wrote:

billw58 wrote:About moving the cursor within/between clips:
When the cursor is in a track, TAB moves forward to next clip boundary, SHIFT-TAB moves back to previous clip boundary.
If the cursor is inside a clip, SHIFT-TAB moves to the start of the clip (previous clip boundary). Another SHIFT-TAB moves to the start of the previous clip (previous clip boundary).

Wouldn't it be simpler (and more consistent) if:

In an audio track: "Tab" moves to the next boundary. Shift+Tab move to the previous boundary.
Thus, to move from the start of the next audio clip - if the clips are touching, press "Tab" once. If there is a gap between the clips, "Tab" to the end of the clip, then "Tab" again to the start of the next.

If clips are separated by white space, it's an extra TAB or SHIFT + TAB to move to the start of a clip. But you might want to move to the end of a clip, so I think I agree with Steve.

steve wrote:When not in a label text box (not editing text), Tab moves to the next label "leg" (boundary). Shift+Tab moves to the previous label "leg".

I'm not sure about that. That breaks the ability of TAB or SHIFT + TAB to move into a label text box from outside a box.

To move to a boundary of a region label, TAB or SHIFT + TAB into the label as now, close the label then LEFT or RIGHT arrow. Or if we implemented it, double-click between labels to select between them (or double-click inside the non-text area of a region label), then LEFT or RIGHT arrow.

If we want a keyboard way to navigate directly to the boundaries of a region label, I think it needs to be a new shortcut.


Gale

billw58 wrote:About moving the cursor within/between clips:
When the cursor is in a track, TAB moves forward to next clip boundary, SHIFT-TAB moves back to previous clip boundary.
If the cursor is inside a clip, SHIFT-TAB moves to the start of the clip (previous clip boundary). Another SHIFT-TAB moves to the start of the previous clip (previous clip boundary).

I mis-typed that. I meant "Another SHIFT-TAB moves to the end of the previous clip (previous clip boundary)", as you and Steve have suggested.
-- Bill

Gale Andrews wrote:Nah, you're a power power user.

I wasn't when I first discovered that feature 7+ years ago, I was an Audacity noob.

Gale Andrews wrote:It's about as silly as having an overlapping OK and Cancel button IMO.

Clearly not.

Gale Andrews wrote:It's clearly broken IMO.

Then how is it that we have not been flooded with bug reports and complaints about it
This feature has been in Audacity for as long as I've been using the program (7+ years), but when was it last even mentioned here on the forum prior to this topic? There have clearly been many millions of users happily using the feature for years, and now you are suggesting changing it because "it's clearly broken" Sorry but that makes no sense. If it were "as silly as an overlapping OK and Cancel button" then I have no doubt that we would have very many complaints and bug reports flooding in every day. After all this time, people would say "Oh yes, Audacity - that's the one with the silly overlapping OK and Cancel buttons".

Gale Andrews wrote:I'm not sure about that. That breaks the ability of TAB or SHIFT + TAB to move into a label text box from outside a box.

Good point, I don't often do that and forgot about that.

Gale Andrews wrote:close the label then LEFT or RIGHT arrow.

Do you mean the "<" ">" chevrons, or cursor left/right?
The problem with chevrons is that they are printable characters.
The problem with left/right cursor is that they are already used for moving the play position.

I like the simplicity and consistency of tab / shift tab for both clips and labels, but I agree that breaking tab / shift tab into a label text box is not good.

How about if there were a toggle button on the Label track control panel (with keyboard shortcut when in a label track) for "Edit labels" (enabled by default)?

billw58 wrote:I mis-typed that. I meant "Another SHIFT-TAB moves to the end of the previous clip (previous clip boundary)", as you and Steve have suggested.

Ah, good. We all agree then

I can tell you something about my recent experiments to make labels accessible.

I've replaced the ordinary Tab function with "move and select" next label (without entering the edit mode).
I press F2 to edit the text at the given position.

This works really great. The disadvantage is currently that one cannot easily select multiple adjacent labels at the same time.
Let's take two point labels at 5.0 s and 10.0 s.
I want to select the audio between those labels. Tab brings me to the first label.
Here, I should be able to press "Set left selection boundary", then press tab again (doesn't matter if I have first to press enter to leave the edit mode) and here I naturally would press "Set right selection boundary".

It is obvious that the new key combinations should only target a single point and that moving inthis fashion wouldn't automatically drag the cursor along (since it defines the left boundary).

However, making the cursor pseudo-independent is probably too much to hope for.


I think that (shift-)tab for audio clips should do the same as for label tracks (apart from edit of course).
They should select the whole clip.
It is trivial to press left or right arrow key to go to the left or right boundary of the clip or label.
And as I said multiple times before, automatic edit mode by tabbing and creating new labels by pressing a single key should be options in preferences, along with a shortcut to edit the label text (e.g. alt-enter).

Clips are somewhat mysterious to vi users.
They should be somehow made accessible. using tab is one way perhaps along with "Clip #" in the status bar.
Another possibility is an additional "Clip Editor" in the Tracks menu or to add a radio button in the label editor.

How reliable is the "Alt" key for use as a modifier?
Do Macs have an "Alt" key or something equivalent?

I'm thinking, for both clips and labels, depending on what sort of track has focus:

• Tab / Shift+Tab
  Selects the the next / previous label or clip for editing.
  Label tracks currently do this, audio tracks don't.
• Left / Right cursor keys (no selection)
  Moves the playback cursor left / right.
  Both Label and audio tracks currently do this.
• Left / Right cursor keys (with selection)
  Jump to the start / end of the selection.
  Both Label and audio tracks currently do this.
• Shift+cursor / Ctrl+cursor
  Extend / contract the selected region.
  Both Label and audio tracks currently do this.
• Alt + Cursor
  jump to next label / clip boundary.
  New feature.
• Alt+Shift+Cursor
  Extend selection to the next label / clip boundary
  New feature.
• Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Cursor
  (Awkward to use, but the least useful of these options)
  Contract the selection to the next label / clip boundary
  New feature.

steve wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:It's clearly broken IMO.

Then how is it that we have not been flooded with bug reports and complaints about it

There are complaints about this, even if not as many as for example about the multiple metadata windows when exporting multiple.

Not all complaints translate into direct "feature requests" for a way to turn "click to merge" off, but the OP here is clearly requesting that. I've added nine votes to Wiki Feature Requests from my stored up requests (including Bill's vote in this topic) that explicitly want "Allow left click in track to snap to split line not delete it".

If we right-click to delete a Split line this is analogous behaviour to right-clicking to remove a Cut line. The enhancement request suggests a Status Bar message when hovering close to a split line that will say how to merge.

Note also that due to bugs in Audacity, clicking to remove split lines is a (slight) crash risk.

I also added another three stored votes for Edit > Select > Clip Start to Cursor and another four votes for tabbing to clip boundaries (that now has 25 votes). Note that a keyboard method to move the cursor to a clip boundary does not make it easier to simply select from there using the mouse, which is the design paradigm elsewhere in Audacity.

steve wrote:When was it last even mentioned here on the forum prior to this topic?

Because users don't always know what these lines are called, it is not too easy to answer that, but
here is an example that I counted as a vote http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 89#p228989:

cuts disappear when I click on them, is there a way to prevent that?

Here is another quote from [email protected]:

I just wonder what the reasoning behind that behavior would be; I guess I can't understand why a person would want split lines to disappear so easily.

Gale

steve wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:close the label then LEFT or RIGHT arrow.

Do you mean the "<" ">" chevrons, or cursor left/right?

LEFT and RIGHT arrow have the same meaning as in the Manual - cursor left and right.

steve wrote:The problem with left/right cursor is that they are already used for moving the play position.

TAB will move the editing cursor too.


Gale

Robert J. H. wrote:I think that (shift-)tab for audio clips should do the same as for label tracks (apart from edit of course).They should select the whole clip. It is trivial to press left or right arrow key to go to the left or right boundary of the clip or label.

Can we say that it is more useful to select all the clip than go to its boundary? I guess not. The new shortcuts "Edit > Select > Cursor to Clip End" and "Edit > Select > Clip Start to Cursor" would let you select all the clip after navigating to its start or end.

Gale

steve wrote:How reliable is the "Alt" key for use as a modifier?
Do Macs have an "Alt" key or something equivalent?

Mac's have an OPTION key which is similar to ALT on Windows and Linux, except that it is not normally used as a shortcut modifier and except that it cannot access app menus.

steve wrote:I'm thinking, for both clips and labels, depending on what sort of track has focus:
Tab / Shift+Tab
Selects the the next / previous label or clip for editing.
Label tracks currently do this, audio tracks don't.

So now you've changed your mind and don't want TAB to move to the next/previous clip boundary?

You want

steve wrote:Alt + Cursor
jump to next label / clip boundary.

to do that?

That's OK at the expense of another shortcut, but I thought "Edit > Select > Cursor to Clip End" and "Edit > Select > Clip Start to Cursor" would mean that we don't really need TAB to select the clip. Also those new shortcuts would probably obviate contracting/expanding to the label or clip boundary if they also operated to select between label boundaries.

In any case I don't see that opening a label for editing is completely analogous to selecting a clip. It would be more analogous if there was an option for TAB not to open the label, as Robert suggests, but I don't think such an option should be default. I would rather see a new shortcut such as CTRL + TAB navigate to a label (or if preferred, label boundary) without opening it for editing.


Gale