Simplifying Audacity

[nilolaus]

Hallo,

I'm trying to simplify Audacity, and as far as I understood, I need a socalled "simplified language" .mo-file. Does anyone know where to get this file?

Second there should be a menu Item "Simplified View" in the "View" Menu, but there isn't.

Am I using the right Version? 1.3.13-beta (Unicode) Mac?

What we neeeeeed is an Audacity-VErsion for (latest) MAc and Windows OS with just the ability to record one Vocal-track to a stereo-playback. Just a small description of our project: Fans of our band should be able to sing one track for us. We would like to let them download a very reduced software-version, that includes a stereo playback and a record button (not much more) so that the user just has th 1. download the package, 2. start the software, 3. hit the rec-button and record his track, 4. export his soundfile and send it via e-mail.

Thank You

[Gale Andrews]

I'm trying to simplify Audacity, and as far as I understood, I need a socalled "simplified language" .mo-file. Does anyone know where to get this file?

Second there should be a menu Item "Simplified View" in the "View" Menu, but there isn't.

Am I using the right Version? 1.3.13-beta (Unicode) Mac?

You have to create the Audacity.mo file yourself using Poedit or similar. You won't see "Simplified View" in the View menu until you create the modified .mo file.

Once you have created the new .mo file you can use it for the current Nightly Builds for either Windows, Mac or Linux. If you use the .mo file with the latest Beta it should still largely work depending on what menu changes have been made between the latest Beta and the current code.

What we neeeeeed is an Audacity-VErsion for (latest) MAc and Windows OS with just the ability to record one Vocal-track to a stereo-playback. Just a small description of our project: Fans of our band should be able to sing one track for us. We would like to let them download a very reduced software-version, that includes a stereo playback and a record button (not much more) so that the user just has th 1. download the package, 2. start the software, 3. hit the rec-button and record his track, 4. export his soundfile and send it via e-mail.

You don't say what language you want the reduced menu items in, but I've tried to write better instructions here:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Simp ... y#Advanced

The "Simplified" scheme only affects menus. If you want to remove entire toolbars you can either tell your users to use View > Toolbars in the program to hide toolbars, or give them a modified audacity.cfg file.

If you want to modify the contents of Toolbars you have to compile Audacity.


Gale

[nilolaus]

Gale -
- thank you very much for your reply!

May be you remember an e-mail sent to you by Charlie Bauerfeind some days ago, wherein he described the project he now asked me to manage. Because we are very near to deadliene I think there is no time to C and compile any code. We hope to get a working version for Mac and PC by just modifying some of the files Audacity needs for presenting its GUI. For it is the first time I see Audacity while trying hard to understand its structure having not very much time left, there will be more stupid questions after trying to study the resources you linked to your answer.

The problem I now have is that no matter what we do, Audacity starts in a default mode after it is moved to a new computer. So the first thing we have to solve is that Audacity does not do anything outside the folder a user gets through a download.

Thank You
Niko

[waxcylinder]

You should be able to do this by copying the Preferences file(s) to the new computers. In 1.3 Audacity creates a Preferences file, audacity.cfg, for each user - see this page in the manual for information on where they are stored on the different computer platforms: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Preferences

You should just be able to install Audacity on the new machine and then copy across your modified audacity.cfg file (for each user account that will be using Audacity on that machine).

WC

[nilolaus]

Aaaah, I think this is what I was looking for:

"However if you a create a directory called "Portable Settings" in the same directory as the Audacity executable, "audacity.cfg" will be stored there instead. This facilitates transfer of the user's customized settings (for example, via a USB stick) if Audacity is used on another computer."

As far as I understand (sorry I am an average dumb German) we can include this folder into our download-package and on the computer, where Audacity is downloaded, Audacity will use the .cfg-File inside the "Portable Settings" folder instead of creating a new one. Am I right?

[waxcylinder]

.. Am I right?

The manual certainly says that is the case, I haven't tried it myself but I suggest that you experiment with it. Do let us know how you get on with this.

Glad to have pointed you in the right direction,
WC

P.S. I supect that you far from being an "average dumb German" if indeed there is such a thing

[Gale Andrews]

As far as I understand... we can include this folder into our download-package and on the computer, where Audacity is downloaded, Audacity will use the .cfg-File insider the "Portable Settings" folder instead of creating a new one. Am I right?

On each launch Audacity will look first for audacity.cfg in a "Portable Settings" folder in the Audacity installation directory and use those settings. If it cannot find audacity.cfg there it will look in Audacity's data directory. If audacity.cfg is not there either (as would normally be the case with a fresh installation) then Audacity will launch with default settings. It will be simpler for you to add the "Portable Settings" folder in the installation directory (@ Peter - indeed it does work).

If you had the time and knowledge you could equally build an installer that added your custom audacity.cfg to the appropriate directory.


Gale

[billw58]

I use the Portable Settings folder all the time. I have many versions of Audacity on my machine for testing, and each uses its own Portable Settings folder.

-- Bill

[nilolaus]

Hey - thank your very much for all the replys!

One more theoretical question: Is there a way to also include the "data directory" and the lame MP3 and ffmpeg Libs? The manual seems to say that the paths of the Libs are stored within the prefs-file - would be great if the data directory will also be availlable on first startup of a session thet ist downloaded with the package.

The goal is letting the user download a package, start a session-file and start recording. and this session-file should already contain the stereo-playback track.

[Gale Andrews]

Is there a way to also include the "data directory" and the lame MP3 and ffmpeg Libs? The manual seems to say that the paths of the Libs are stored within the prefs-file - would be great if the data directory will also be availlable on first startup of a session thet ist downloaded with the package.

Unfortunately you aren't permitted to include LAME and FFmpeg directly with Audacity. It has to be made available separately.

If you are making a bundle it is OK to include LAME and FFmpeg installers in the bundle as long as they are not in the "Audacity" installation folder. Just tell people to install LAME and FFmpeg before running Audacity.

You can certainly pre-load .cfg with the path to LAME and FFmpeg but there would be an error if that path did not exist. Generally this step "should" not be necessary - Audacity 1.3.13 should recognise LAME and FFmpeg automatically if they are installed to their default location. However due to Apple permissions problems this may not work on OS X 10.6 and 10.7 - user might have to install somewhere in their own or publicly accessible space outside the default /usr/local/lib/audacity folder into which Audacity installs LAME and FFmpeg.

The goal is letting the user download a package, start a session-file and start recording. and this session-file should already contain the stereo-playback track.

You could possibly create an Audacity project that includes this stereo playback track (the file should be copied into the _data folder for the project when you create the project) .


Gale