Zoom Normal (Cmd+2) cursor position

[waxcylinder]

... what do we do when the currently selected cursor position is not on scren anyway and we are zooming elsewhere (without moving the cursor)?

There are three possibilities that come to mind that I think would be acceptable (so any of these would be better than now, but I prefer the third option):
1) Always zoom around the playback cursor so that the playback cursor position is brought into view.
2) Keep the same time position for the left edge of the visible track area.
3) Attempt to keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track area, but pin the earliest time to zero (don't show time before zero).

I've been thinking about this a lot and experimenting with the zooms and I'm now thinking that we need a mixtur of options 1 and 3 depending on the mode Audacity is in.

Play and Record mode
1) Always zoom around the playback cursor so that the playback cursor position is brought into view.
This seems to be what the Zoom In and Zoom Out do and therefore seems logical for Zoom Normal to do the same.

Pause mode
As above for Play & Record modes

Stopped mode
3) Attempt to keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track area, but pin the earliest time to zero (don't show time before zero).
i.e no "white space" and no auto turning on of show audio before zero.

But when the currently selected cursor position is on screen in Stopped Mode we should ensure that it remains on-screen when Zoom Normal is invoked, as is the case with the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands.

Scrubbing mode
As for Play & Record modes above

Unlike Gale I use Zoom Normal a lot, it was one of the first shortcuts I have ever learned,but the behavior has always irritated me. Over the years I have learned to live with how it works - but it would be good to change it to yield a more logical and useful outcome.

Peter.

[steve]

+1 for waxcylinder's proposal.

Clarification on one point:

Stopped mode
3) Attempt to keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track area, but pin the earliest time to zero (don't show time before zero).
i.e no "white space" and no auto turning on of show audio before zero.

I agree "no white space" before zero.
Zooming in or out on "White space beyond the end(s) of the track must be allowed because the user may want to insert (paste or generate) audio into that white space.
This is currently a problem with mouse wheel zoom (which I use all the time) in that it does not allow zooming in beyond the end of the track. Ideally this should be fixed at the same time.

[waxcylinder]

If Gale also agrees with this then I will work it up into a Proposal with a linked tracking entry in Bugzilla.

Peter.

[Gale Andrews]

... what do we do when the currently selected cursor position is not on scren anyway and we are zooming elsewhere (without moving the cursor)?

There are three possibilities that come to mind that I think would be acceptable (so any of these would be better than now, but I prefer the third option):
1) Always zoom around the playback cursor so that the playback cursor position is brought into view.
2) Keep the same time position for the left edge of the visible track area.
3) Attempt to keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track area, but pin the earliest time to zero (don't show time before zero).

I've been thinking about this a lot and experimenting with the zooms and I'm now thinking that we need a mixtur of options 1 and 3 depending on the mode Audacity is in.

Play and Record mode
1) Always zoom around the playback cursor so that the playback cursor position is brought into view.
This seems to be what the Zoom In and Zoom Out do and therefore seems logical for Zoom Normal to do the same.

Does that mean that we would centre the playback (or recording) cursor (moving or paused) after Zoom Normal, as long as white space after the project was not showing?

I agree with Zoom Normal working on the "transport" cursor not the editing cursor, but Zoom In/Out do not always centre the transport cursor. I would think they should. An example when centering doesn't happen is if you zoom in when the transport cursor is near the start of the visible track.

) Attempt to keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track area
[...]
But when the currently selected cursor position is on screen in Stopped Mode we should ensure that it remains on-screen when Zoom Normal is invoked, as is the case with the Zoom In and Zoom Out commands.

We definitely want the currently visible cursor or (some part of) the selection to remain on screen after Zoom Normal.

But thinking about this again, won't "keep the same time position of the centre of the visible track" mean that the horizontal position of the cursor or selection edge may move, which was part of the original complaint?

If we start from 5 seconds of visible audio, e.g. here where the cursor is near the end of the visible track:

before_zoom_normal.png (2.38 KiB) Viewed 760 times

do we want Zoom Normal to centre the previous time position:

after_centre_view.png (2.47 KiB) Viewed 760 times

or to retain the cursor's horizontal position relative to the visible track?

after_restore_cursor_position.png (2.61 KiB) Viewed 760 times

There could be more extreme examples of cursor movement than that. Given this is only one change of zoom level, retaining the cursor's horizontal position looks more useful to me.

I guess standard zoom in and out don't retain the cursor horizontal position because for selections not viewing only one edge, it is often as useful (and distinct from mouse wheel zoom) to zoom to the centre of the selection.

But for zoom normal, I suggest again it could be more useful where only one selection edge is visible to zoom normal so that the visible selection edge retains its horizontal position. It is perhaps slightly inconsistent, but you could not normally mouse zoom to normal level in one step.

That said, if we had keyboard shortcuts (six needed) or modifiers (two needed) to make the three zoom commands zoom to cursor/selection start or selection end, we could leave zoom normal when no transport was occurring to always zoom to the centre of the visible track. That should happen anyway where the cursor or selection is off screen without transport occurring. I would like to see keyboard modifiers for different zoom behaviour.

Is there any support for my related suggestion?

View > Go to Selection Start and View > Go to Selection End should both centre the cursor in the view when there is no selection. It is not useful for those commands to (by default) select all and destroy the existing cursor position.

When the "Select all... if none selected" preference was off, we could either grey those commands out (as now) or enable them and have both centre the cursor.

If there is, this could be part of the proposal.

So too for Steve's point that mousewheel zoom does not zoom at a pointer position after the end of the project (it does zoom after the end of a track if that is not the end of the project).


Gale

[steve]

Does that mean that we would centre the playback (or recording) cursor (moving or paused) after Zoom Normal, as long as white space after the project was not showing?

Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+3 look OK to me during playback, so I'd suggest that Ctrl+2 should work the same way.

[steve]

We definitely want the currently visible cursor or (some part of) the selection to remain on screen after Zoom Normal.

i think that we all agree that is the main issue that needs to be fixed.

[steve]

I think that the behaviour will depend on whether "Zoom Normal" is zooming in or out (it could be doing either depending on the initial zoom level). When zooming In, I think the behaviour should be the same as Ctrl+1, and when zooming out, the same as Ctrl+3.

[cmac185]

Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+3 look OK to me during playback, so I'd suggest that Ctrl+2 should work the same way.

FWIW, I agree with Steve on this.

I initially started this thread because of the inconsistency of the Zoom Normal (Cmd+2) as compared to Zoom In and Zoom Out. I do a lot of editing of spoken tracks that have undesirable audience noises or speaker caused noises so zoom in to deal with the issue then Zoom Normal to zoom back out to play from 5 sec or so before the editing position to make sure the transition is good. The present Zoom Normal most of the time shifts the whole display left so the cursor is nearly on the left hand edge which makes the setting of the cursor to the point for play back difficult since I need to move the cursor left of the editing point/selection 5 seconds or so and that is often right at the edge or just beyond the displayed track.

I'm all for having the special behaviors using modifier keys as long as the basic zoom in, out and normal work with the existing shortcuts. I suspect that few of the users will learn or use the modifier keys, but they could be useful in some cases.

Cliff

[Gale Andrews]

Does that mean that we would centre the playback (or recording) cursor (moving or paused) after Zoom Normal, as long as white space after the project was not showing?

Ctrl+1 and Ctrl+3 look OK to me during playback, so I'd suggest that Ctrl+2 should work the same way.

Except that Zoom In and Zoom Out don't have any clear rule that is being applied. I agree the behaviour is not terrible - usually the transport cursor is centered but "sometimes" when the cursor is near the start of the visible track the cursor will remain at more or less its original position.

However if the transport cursor is at the end of the visible track, the centering behaviour creates a "jerky" appearance after Zoom In or Out. So, if thought preferable or "worth the effort", we could aim to restore the relative horizontal position of the cursor (as "sometimes" happens now).


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

I initially started this thread because of the inconsistency of the Zoom Normal (Cmd+2) as compared to Zoom In and Zoom Out. I do a lot of editing of spoken tracks that have undesirable audience noises or speaker caused noises so zoom in to deal with the issue then Zoom Normal to zoom back out to play from 5 sec or so before the editing position to make sure the transition is good. The present Zoom Normal most of the time shifts the whole display left so the cursor is nearly on the left hand edge which makes the setting of the cursor to the point for play back difficult since I need to move the cursor left of the editing point/selection 5 seconds or so and that is often right at the edge or just beyond the displayed track.

I'm all for having the special behaviors using modifier keys as long as the basic zoom in, out and normal work with the existing shortcuts. I suspect that few of the users will learn or use the modifier keys, but they could be useful in some cases.

So to paraphrase, Cliff... does that mean that for "consistency" when there is no transport, we have Zoom Normal centre the current view where possible (we disallow that where it would mean showing white space before zero)?

And you accept that centering may mean that actual horizontal position of the editing position may move significantly across the visible track?

And you accept (if your workflow involved this) that if you were looking at one selection edge and Zoom Normal zoomed in, you could lose that selection edge?

And for those who are concerned by the above two points, we add new key modifiers for all three Zoom commands?


Gale