Zoom view snap-back feature.

[MichloIW]

Greetings,

I did look over the (rather large) list of pending requests and did not see this but I apologise if it IS a duplicate.

Something I would find extremely useful for speeding up the editing process (and thus, hopefully others would) is the ability to snap back to the view setting we had after we "fit selection" or "fit project" or even, if possible, before we start zooming in.

I'm sure we all have to do this to find the extraneous noises and flaws we wish to eliminate and so I find myself zooming in and out a great deal.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Cheers.

[cyrano]

I'll second this. It's the relatively small things that can make your workflow fly...

[Gale Andrews]

How exactly do you want to implement it?

Years ago there was a "zoom toggle" button with a double magnifying glass that switched between the last two used levels of zoom.

Or zoom level and view position could be added to Region Save/Restore. This seems closest to your suggestion if it captured the previous zoom level and view position automatically.


Gale

[cyrano]

Simply having a sensible default and going back to the same default when you "unzoom" (Zoom normal) would be a good start.

When you open or import an audio file, I suppose zoom is calculated on a basis of length of the audio wave form?

I can't grok the system as it is now. Seems like a sort of "undo zoom" in stead of "go back to default".

Maybe have a default zoom level setting in preferences?

And it ties to other sensible defaults, like having "waveform db" default and not the very misleading "waveform". The current default is misleading, because a very common music file that has been compressed to hell, show up as if it could do with a healthy portion of amplification:

Waveform view.png (20.14 KiB) Viewed 1517 times

Waveform view (dB).png (17.01 KiB) Viewed 1517 times

Quite a difference isn't it?

I seem to remember this default was chosen to help beginners. I think it may mislead beginners and pro's...

[waxcylinder]

Something I would find extremely useful for speeding up the editing process (and thus, hopefully others would) is the ability to snap back to the view setting we had after we "fit selection" or "fit project" or even, if possible, before we start zooming in.

+1 to that

How exactly do you want to implement it?

How about an extra button on the Zoom Toolbar - seems the appropriate place

Peter

[steve]

like having "waveform db" default and not the very misleading "waveform".

In their own way, both are "misleading".

This image gives the impression that the noise level at the start is about half as loud as the music:


This image looks like a sine wave:


as does this:

firsttrack000.png (8.84 KiB) Viewed 1512 times

and this?

firsttrack001.png (7.41 KiB) Viewed 1512 times

Misleading or revealing? It depends what you are looking for.

[steve]

Something I would find extremely useful for speeding up the editing process (and thus, hopefully others would) is the ability to snap back to the view setting we had after we "fit selection" or "fit project" or even, if possible, before we start zooming in.

I'm pretty sure that snapping back after "fit selection" or "fit project" could be done. Snapping back to "before we start zooming" could be problematic because zooming may be multiple events (for example, when zooming with the mouse wheel there is a sequence of small rotational movements). The difficulty is determining the point that the user wants to go back to. One possible solution could be to have a saved zoom level that the user can set at any time.

[Gale Andrews]

Simply having a sensible default and going back to the same default when you "unzoom" (Zoom normal) would be a good start.

Audacity has Zoom Normal (CTRL + 2 or COMMAND + 2 on Mac).

But if your cursor was near the end of a long track, even if zoomed in no further than Zoom Normal, then you did Fit Project followed by Zoom Normal, the view position goes back to the start of the track. Let's take that case. What view and zoom position do you want to go back to after Fit Project?

Seems like a sort of "undo zoom" in stead of "go back to default".

Maybe have a default zoom level setting in preferences?

You mean, so that the View > Zoom Normal level was customisable?

There is still the question of going back to the same view position or not.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Something I would find extremely useful for speeding up the editing process (and thus, hopefully others would) is the ability to snap back to the view setting we had after we "fit selection" or "fit project" or even, if possible, before we start zooming in.

+1 to that

How exactly do you want to implement it?

How about an extra button on the Zoom Toolbar - seems the appropriate place

What I meant was what Steve was asking. If we just do what amounts to "Undo Fit Selection" and "Undo Fit Project" and that only works if you don't zoom between "Fit" and "Undo Fit", that should be a simple enough concept - but not as useful as other solutions.


Gale

[waxcylinder]

What I think I'd really like is a user settable zoom level button where I could say be at my favoured zoom level at that time (normally my working zoom level is with 3 to minutes of audio on the screen) then press right click to store that zoom level with the button. Then subsequent left clicks of that button would return to me set zoom level.

I may just add this to the Zoom toolbar proposal in the Wiki

Update 18Aug15: I did just that - see: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Propo ... om_Toolbar

Peter.