Move some export preferences into export interface

[steve]

First, they must find the Import / Export Preference so as to hide the Metadata Editor

I agree that part is not obvious, (part of the reason for this proposal).

I would have thought it fairly obvious that adding metadata on exporting "a file" will apply the metadata to that file. It only takes a little use of Audacity to realize that metadata is saved in projects, so pretty intuitive that metadata saved in the "project" will be passed through the all exported files.

On the other hand, entering metadata on exporting "a file" and the metadata being passed through to subsequent exported files seems highly illogical to me. Where / when does it stop? Is the metadata pushed backward into the project? Will it affect an "Export Selection As" if performed later? Is it saved in the project? Is it passed through to new projects? An option to "pass through" the metadata seems to open up more doubts and confusion than it solves. (and adds no functionality that we don't already have).

Finally, they have to find File > Edit Metadata... .

which is two lines above "Export audio". Hard to miss if you know that it is called "metadata", but many users probably think of it as "tags". Perhaps that is the underlying problem?

If we add options for whitespace between clips might they want to change it on the fly?

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you proposing a way to automatically export individual clips from a track without using labels? For now I'd prefer to limit these changes to the two items mentioned in the original post. We can certainly consider adding other options later if this is successful and proves useful.

Probably because you can then intentionally or accidentally move tracks after zero that are not part of a mix and still get an export without unwanted leading space.

but it only helps in one direction. If you intentionally or accidentally move tracks before zero, the start is removed.

[Gale Andrews]

I would have thought it fairly obvious that adding metadata on exporting "a file" will apply the metadata to that file. It only takes a little use of Audacity to realize that metadata is saved in projects, so pretty intuitive that metadata saved in the "project" will be passed through the all exported files.

I strongly disagree that it is intuitive for export multiple to have no way at time of export to prevent having to click OK on every single metadata screen. Many users say it is unintuitive, and worse than that, this is something that Audacity 1.2 actually got right. In other words, it is a regression for a common everyday task.

On the other hand, entering metadata on exporting "a file" and the metadata being passed through to subsequent exported files seems highly illogical to me.

It happened in 1.2 (see above) but it was a "silent" pass - there were no extra metadata screens. It was the same pass through that you get now by hiding the metadata editor and entering metadata before you export. The difference was, in 1.2 it was discoverable and intuitive.

Where / when does it stop? Is the metadata pushed backward into the project? Will it affect an "Export Selection As" if performed later? Is it saved in the project? Is it passed through to new projects? An option to "pass through" the metadata seems to open up more doubts and confusion than it solves.

For simplicity, I have never suggested we would pass through to the project. After Export Multiple, the content of Metadata Editor would remain as it is presented in the first metadata screen of an Export Multiple. This is the same as happens now.

The difference would be - if "Pass through" is enabled in Export Multiple, then Metadata Editor only appears once after pressing Export. The user enters the common metadata that they want for all the exported files in that first and only screen.

As now, the Track Title and Track Number would be generated automatically for each subsequent file. In 1.2, we simply grayed out those automatic fields when presenting the tag window. We could do better. For example, if the user changes the Track Title with "Pass through" enabled, use that new title for all the subsequent files. If the user changes the Track Number with "Pass Through" enabled, increment Track Number by 1 in each exported file.

In fact even with "Pass through" disabled (meaning we show the Metadata Editor for each subsequent file) it would be much more useful if the user changed a field that they had added in one of the iterations of the editor, then pass that change through to the next screen.

Thinking more, I envisage "Pass through" replaces "Hide Metadata Editor" (which looks ambiguous in meaning to me if we also have a "No Metadata" option). There may be a better name for "Pass through" such as "Use entered metadata for all files" or the opposite "Show Metadata Editor for each file".

(and adds no functionality that we don't already have).

But that functionality we have is hard to find.

What I have suggested above does add new functionality.

And, if "Pass through" was not enabled, we could have Next/Back buttons for each metadata screen. That was (in effect) asked for only today. It would be much more intuitive than OK when there are more screens to follow.

Finally, they have to find File > Edit Metadata... .

which is two lines above "Export audio". Hard to miss if you know that it is called "metadata", but many users probably think of it as "tags". Perhaps that is the underlying problem?

A rename might help marginally but the underlying issue is that set metadata then export is the wrong way round. The intuitive way round is export then set metadata.

I've known people even find Edit Metadata before export then not know what do with that metadata window because they are thinking that they must set the export up first.

If we add options for whitespace between clips might they want to change it on the fly?

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you proposing a way to automatically export individual clips from a track without using labels?

Yes that could be one of the "white space" options: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 90#p233290.

Probably because you can then intentionally or accidentally move tracks after zero that are not part of a mix and still get an export without unwanted leading space.

but it only helps in one direction. If you intentionally or accidentally move tracks before zero, the start is removed.

Export handling of audio before zero could be an option or preference too.


Gale

[steve]

I strongly disagree that it is intuitive for export multiple to have no way at time of export to prevent having to click OK on every single metadata screen.

I agree, which is why I'm proposing to move the option into the export dialog.

Also, I don't think that it is intuitive that if the user sets preferences to NOT show the Metadata editor and they have not added metadata themselves, that metadata may end up in their exported files because it has been passed through, unseen, from an imported file. That is why I want to add an option for NOT putting metadata into the exported file, so that then there is an option at export when the user can ensure that there is no unseen metadata in their exported files.

What I was saying is intuitive is that if the metadata is put into the "project", then of course it will be passed through to all exported tracks.

[waxcylinder]

Finally, they have to find File > Edit Metadata... .

which is two lines above "Export audio". Hard to miss if you know that it is called "metadata", but many users probably think of it as "tags". Perhaps that is the underlying problem?

A rename might help marginally ...

I think a rename might help "discoverability" a lot

While metadata is technically an linguistically correct - I suspect that "metadata" passes over the heads of many users - and as Steve says many of them will know that stuff simply as "tags".

So we could either refer to them in the GUI and the documentation as "metadata tags" or just "tags" - I actually have a slight preference for the former.

And this is something we could effect very quicky and easily ...

Peter.

What Wikipedia says (my underlining and bolding):
Digital music

When audio went from analogue to digital, it became possible to label audio files with more information than could be contained in just the file name. That descriptive information is called audio tag or audio metadata in general. Computer programs specialized in adding or modifying this information are called tag editors.

Metadata can be used to name, describe, catalogue and indicate ownership or copyright for a digital audio file, and its presence makes it much easier to locate a specific audio file within a group – through use of a search engine that accesses the metadata. As different digital audio formats were developed, it was agreed that a standardized and specific location would be set aside within the digital files where this information could be stored.

As a result, almost all digital audio formats, including mp3, broadcast wav and AIFF files, have similar standardized locations that can be populated with metadata.

CDs such as recordings of music will carry a layer of metadata about the recordings such as dates, artist, genre, copyright owner, etc. The metadata, not normally displayed by CD players, can be accessed and displayed by specialized music playback and/or editing applications.

The metadata for compressed and uncompressed digital music is often encoded in the ID3 tag. Common editors such as TagLib support MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MPC, Speex, WavPack TrueAudio, WAV, AIFF, MP4, and ASF file formats.

[Gale Andrews]

I strongly disagree that it is intuitive for export multiple to have no way at time of export to prevent having to click OK on every single metadata screen.

I agree, which is why I'm proposing to move the option into the export dialog.

Tell me what happens in your scheme if the user unchecks "Hide Metadata Editor" in the Export Multiple dialogue, Metadata Editor at that point is empty, then clicks Export. I contend the user should see the Metadata Editor, enter their common tags, click OK and they don't see any more metadata screens. Believe me, no other behaviour will solve this problem.

I don't think that it is intuitive that if the user sets preferences to NOT show the Metadata editor and they have not added metadata themselves, that metadata may end up in their exported files because it has been passed through, unseen, from an imported file. That is why I want to add an option for NOT putting metadata into the exported file, so that then there is an option at export when the user can ensure that there is no unseen metadata in their exported files.

I think a way of providing no metadata in the exports is a much lesser problem than what I want to address, but I do agree "no metadata" should be an option and that enabling that option would cause the Metadata Editor not to appear.

Given we want to add a "no metadata" option, do we even need "Hide Metadata Editor" for straight export? Almost no-one enters or modifies metadata before export. That is the crux of the problem.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Finally, they have to find File > Edit Metadata... .

which is two lines above "Export audio". Hard to miss if you know that it is called "metadata", but many users probably think of it as "tags". Perhaps that is the underlying problem?

A rename might help marginally ...

I think a rename might help "discoverability" a lot

As I said, even if users find File > Edit Metadata... they typically don't use it because they expect to enter metadata after the export step. A rename may be useful but it will not solve the fundamental problem.

The only obvious rename I see is File > Edit Metadata Tags... and that's an extra word so there may be objections...


Gale

[waxcylinder]

The only obvious rename I see is File > Edit Metadata Tags... and that's an extra word so there may be objections...

and that's still much shorter than "Save Compressed Copy of Project..." which is in the same menu - and makes it clearer.

The term metadata is really a technical term rather than a user term - and note carefully that not all metadata are necessarily tags.

The other place in the GUI we would need to change is in Prefererences>Import/Export dialog.

And even if we don't change it in the GUI I think it would be worthwhile replacing "metadata" with metadata tags" in the user Manual (and any user pages in the Wiki).

Peter.

[steve]

The only obvious rename I see is File > Edit Metadata Tags... and that's an extra word so there may be objections...

It's usually me that complains about long menu names, but "Edit Metadata Tags..." is still not particularly long, and I think the extra clarity would be worth it, so no complaint from me

[waxcylinder]

The only obvious rename I see is File > Edit Metadata Tags... and that's an extra word so there may be objections...

It's usually me that complains about long menu names, but "Edit Metadata Tags..." is still not particularly long, and I think the extra clarity would be worth it, so no complaint from me

To quote from Bob The Builder "Can we fix it ... "

[steve]

Tell me what happens in your scheme if the user unchecks "Hide Metadata Editor" in the Export Multiple dialogue,

It's not a checkbox. As I wrote in the first post, it is a multi-choice widget with three options:

Metadata:

1. Show Metadata Editor
2. Hide Metadata Editor
3. No Metadata

What these options do is:

1. Same as current default
2. Same as turning off the current "Show Metadata Editor prior to export step" option. Metadata is still written if present.
3. No metadata is written to the exported file(s)

Tell me what happens in your scheme if the user unchecks "Hide Metadata Editor" in the Export Multiple dialogue, Metadata Editor at that point is empty, then clicks Export. I contend the user should see the Metadata Editor, enter their common tags, click OK and they don't see any more metadata screens. Believe me, no other behaviour will solve this problem.

I presume that "unchecks "Hide Metadata Editor"" means that they want the metadata editor to appear, so that is "choice 1" in the proposed multi-choice widget. In this case, the metadata editor will open for each exported track. If it doesn't then it would be impossible for users to enter different metadata for each track, which they may well need to do.

If they want metadata to "pass through" (as you described it) and they don't want the metadata editor to pop up on each export, then they would add the required metadata to the project, and then select "choice 2". The metadata is still written to the files, but the editor does not pop up.

If the user wants no metadata to be written, they select "choice 3". The metadata editor does not pop up and no metadata is written to the exported files.

I think a way of providing no metadata in the exports is a much lesser problem than what I want to address

When I first encountered this was several years ago. I was compiling some CDs for use in a show. My CD burning software was Nero. I could not understand why some of the tracks appeared in the CD compilation window in Nero were listed with completely different names to the names of the files. In some cases the names appeared to be totally unrelated to the tracks. After much wasted time and a few wasted CD-Rs, I worked out that some of the tracks had "inherited" metadata from audio clips that were imported at some time during the Audacity session when I created the tracks for the CD.

I had no need for metadata, so the metadata editor was set to not open. There was no indication that metadata was sometimes being added, and that was screwing up my CDs. The only safe workaround available at that time was to set Metadata Editor to open before export, because that was the only way that I could be sure there was no metadata. This "workaround" was both inconvenient, a pointless waste of time, and made nonsense of even having the option in preferences.

Given we want to add a "no metadata" option, do we even need "Hide Metadata Editor" for straight export?

Yes, absolutely, because some users will want to pass metadata through to each file from the project without needing to "OK" the editor for each file, and some will want to add different metadata to each exported file, We need to cater for both use cases, not just one. Even with "normal" export, they may want to export more than one file from the project.

Almost no-one enters or modifies metadata before export.

How else do you add metadata to a project if you are saving the project and not exporting immediately?
What's the point of having a menu item for the Metadata Editor in the File menu? Surely it is there precisely so that you CAN add metadata to the project before and/or without exporting.

What happens if you open the Metadata Editor from the File menu and then export three files?
With "normal" export, you get the Metadata that you entered.
With Export Multiple, you get "some" of the Metadata that you entered, but the track name and track number have been changed - that is NOT intuitive, but that is the way that it is and I can see that it can be useful for some workflows, but no-one will guess that will happen unless they try it or they rtfm.