Seeking "Total Length" Box

[BillFrezza]

Hi, Bill Frezza here again, host of RealClear Radio Hour, hoping I could persuade one of you Audacity Wizards to figure out how to add a feature that would save me a lot of time as I edit each week's show down from the full podcast length to fit my show clock on Bloomberg Radio.

At the very bottom left of the Audacity editing screen, there are three little boxes titled "Selection Start", "End or Length" and "Audio Position." Can someone figure out how to add one more box to the right of those titled "Total Length" that indicates the length of the entire piece being edited? What would make this so valuable is that as I trim the show trying to hit the target length of each particular segment I'm editing, I constantly have to stop, skip to end to see how I'm doing, then find my way back to where I was to continue shaving. A little box giving me constant feedback on how much more cutting I need to do would save all that back and forth, plus I wouldn't have to talk to myself out loud as much struggling to remember where I was when I jumped to the end, or how many more seconds I have to shave before I'm done (6:42 with 12 second do go!).

If there is no easy way to add this, how do I make an appeal to the Audacity Gods to include this in the next set of features added to the product?

Many thanks,

Bill

[waxcylinder]

... I constantly have to stop, skip to end to see how I'm doing, then find my way back to where I was to continue shaving.

What I would do as a workarounfd is to drop a temporary label at the point or region I amm currently working on. After going to the end to see the "length" you should be able to Tab to the label (if it's the only one) or Tab through till you get to your current work zone.

WC

[steve]

What I do is to use "Ctrl + Mouse Wheel" to zoom out so that I can see where the end of the track is relative to the "Timeline" ruler at the top, then "Ctrl+Mouse Wheel" again to zoom back to where I was.

[BillFrezza]

Thanks. The ctrl-mousewheel trick is more efficient than dropping a tag and less goofy than talking to myself out loud.

And so - how do I get the Audacity Gods to consider adding a total length box to the bottom of the editing screen in their next version?

[BillFrezza]

Dear Audacity Product Gods,

Hi, Bill Frezza here, host of RealClear Radio Hour. I was hoping I could persuade you to add a trivial little feature to the next Audacity revision that would save a lot of time as I edit each week's show down from the full podcast length to fit my show clock on Bloomberg Radio. I'm sure this applies to anyone that has to edit an audio segment to a fixed target length.

At the very bottom left of the Audacity editing screen, there are three little boxes titled "Selection Start", "End or Length" and "Audio Position." Would you consider adding one more box to the right of those titled "Total Length" that indicates the length of the entire piece being edited? What would make this so valuable is that as I trim the show trying to hit the target of each segment, I constantly have to stop, skip to the end to see how I'm doing, then find my way back to where I was to continue shaving. A little box giving constant feedback on how much more cutting needs to be done would save all that back and forth, plus I wouldn't have to talk to myself out loud struggling to remember where to return from the jump, or how many more seconds I have to shave before I'm done. (During final edit I sound like I have Tourettes. "6:42, 12.5 second do go!")

Many thanks,

Bill

[waxcylinder]

And so - how do I get the Audacity Gods to consider adding a total length box to the bottom of the editing screen in their next version?

I suspect there may be some reluctance to do that as that Toolbar is already fairly wide - and the developers like to consider folk who run with smaller screens or reduced-size Audacity windows.

WC

[waxcylinder]

As I wrote in your other thread I suspect there may be some reluctance to do that as that Toolbar is already fairly wide - and the developers like to consider folk who run with smaller screens or reduced-size Audacity windows.

WC

[steve]

Assuming that you are working with a single audio track (you did not say otherwise), try running this code in the Nyquist Prompt effect:

Code: Select all

(setf mins 60)
(setf seconds 30.0)

(let* ((start (get '*track* 'start-time))
      (end (get '*track* 'end-time))
      (target (+ (* 60.0 mins) seconds)))
  (setf dif (- end start target))
  (setf difmin (truncate (/ (abs dif) 60.0)))
  (setf difsec (rem (truncate (abs dif)) 60))
  (if (minusp dif)
      (format nil "~a:~a under ~a:~a" difmin difsec mins seconds)
      (format nil "~a:~a over ~a:~a" difmin difsec mins seconds)))

The first two lines are where you set the target length of the show (currently set to 60 minutes and 30 seconds).
The Nyquist Prompt allows you to save and load your favourite code scripts. Scripts should normally be saved with ".ny" as the file extension.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/ny ... rompt.html
To use this effect you just need to select part (any part) of the track that you want to measure.

[kozikowski]

What does this script do?
Koz

[Gale Andrews]

Moved to "Adding Features". I can add Bill's "vote" but I agree it has little chance of being implemented, unless there was an option for the third box to be Total Project Length instead of Audio Position.

If you don't mind losing your selection, you can simply CTRL + A and look in the second box in Selection Toolbar.

Gale