Transport - Stop error message if already stopped

[Scoox]

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit v20H2 (OS Build 19042.1586)
Audacity v3.13

Steps:

1. Go Edit > Preferences... > Keyboard, find Transport - Stop and assign the S to it, then click OK.
2. Record something, then position playback cursor at the beginning of the recording.
3. Press Space key to start playback.
4. Press S (assigned at a step 1) to stop playback

Expected and observed result: Playback stops (no problems here)

5.Immediately after step 4 (i.e. stopped), press S key again.

Expected result: No action, since playback is currently stopped
Observed result: Warning box is displayed (see screen capture below).
Remarks: This used to work correctly in earlier versions (don't know exactly when it broke)

Audacity error.png (19.84 KiB) Viewed 9897 times

Hope you wizards fix this—thank you!

[jademan]

Hope you wizards fix this—thank you!

Some people might deem this behavior a feature, i.e., correct, or an improvement over the previous behavior. Why do you have a problem with it

[waxcylinder]

This is indeed a regression bug - my testing on W10 shows it to be a regression on Audacity 2.1.3, introduced in Audacity 2.2.0

The menu structures were changed in 2..2.0 and the "Stop" command was moved to be an Extra menus command: Extra > Transport > Stop

Stop.png (39.05 KiB) Viewed 9890 times

The Extra menus are not mainstream commands (and are not visible by default)they are added mainly for Scripting and for VI use.

You will see from the image above that the default keyboard shortcut for Stop (while Playing or recording is to use the Space bar (green ellipse). Pressing Space while Audacity is not playing or recording will start playback.

So I have to ask: just why are you finding it necessary to add an extra shortcut for just Stop ?


Nonetheless this is a regression bug - albeit a minor one - so it can be logged. It need to be logged on GitHub as the developers of Audacity do not visit this site.
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues

You can either log this yourself - to do this you will need a GitHub account, but those are free. Or if you feel unable to do that I could log it for you.

Peter.

[Scoox]

Thank. I have an AutoHotkey script with a macro that maps a key to the following sequence: Stop, Record. The goal of this macro is to enable me to start recording immediately with a single keypress, without having to worry about whether Audacity is already playing or recording. This removes the need to even look at the screen to start a recording. The problem with using Play/Pause instead of Stop is that the playback state of the former command depends on the initial state, but my script has no way to know the initial state so the macro doesn't work 50% of the time because Audacity refuses to record if it's already playing.

IMO the warning message is unnecessary since on every single hardware and software recorder ever made the Stop button stops if playing, and (rather intuitively) does nothing if already stopped. The sole purpose of a Stop button is to stop, not to stop 50% of the time The warning box essentially renders the Stop command useless.

[waxcylinder]

Thank. I have an AutoHotkey script with a macro that maps a key to the following sequence: Stop, Record. The goal of this macro is to enable me to start recording immediately with a single keypress, without having to worry about whether Audacity is already playing or recording. This removes the need to even look at the screen to start a recording. The problem with using Play/Pause instead of Stop is that the playback state of the former command depends on the initial state, but my script has no way to know the initial state so the macro doesn't work 50% of the time because Audacity refuses to record if it's already playing.

Thanks for the use case.

Can you let me see a copy of your Macro please.

IMO the warning message is unnecessary since on every single hardware and software recorder ever made the Stop button stops if playing, and (rather intuitively) does nothing if already stopped. The sole purpose of a Stop button is to stop, not to stop 50% of the time The warning box essentially renders the Stop command useless.

I see ...

The oddity is that if you try to use Extra > Transport > Stop when Audacity is not playing or recording you will observe that the menu command is grayed out and inoperable - so via the menu you can't get the error message. It's only with the sgotscut for that command that the error message can occur.


You didn't say if you were planning to log this on GitHub ...

Peter.

[Scoox]

Hi, the macro is nothing fancy, here you can see the bit that pertains to Audacity.

Code: Select all

~MButton::
	IfWinActive ahk_class wxWindowNR
	{
		SendInput s
		SendInput r ;Record
	}
Return

Using the stop command while stopped is not an oddity. If you have a car, how many times have you pressed the Lock button on the key remote becasue you were not sure you had locked it? It's the same. Car keys don't have a Lock/Unlock toggle because 50% of the time you'd leave your car unlocked.

Since Audacity is smart enough to know that the GUI Stop button needs to be disabled when already stopped, it should be smart enough to just ignore the key command under those circumstances, rather than disrupt the user's workflow.

[waxcylinder]

Yes I understand - but as I told you earlier - if you want the Audacity developers to see this issue you will need to log it on GitHub:
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues

as they do not visit this Forum ...

Peter.

[steve]

5.Immediately after step 4 (i.e. stopped), press S key again.

Expected result: No action, since playback is currently stopped
Observed result: Warning box is displayed (see screen capture below).
Remarks: This used to work correctly in earlier versions (don't know exactly when it broke)

For what it's worth, I don't see this problem on Linux with either 3.1.3 or 3.2.0 alpha. I see the expected result - "No action".

[Scoox]

Yes I understand - but as I told you earlier - if you want the Audacity developers to see this issue you will need to log it on GitHub:
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/issues

as they do not visit this Forum ...

Peter.

Oops! I thought this was the place to report issues. It's done now.

[waxcylinder]

Oops! I thought this was the place to report issues. It's done now.

No, the developers never look here, occasionally Muse QA folk my look in - but mostly the Forum is run by part-time volunteers.

I added the "bug" and "regression" tags to your bug thread on GitHub

Peter.