Is it possible to write a plugin to alter the menu layout?

[PGA]

I, too, would like to see the Effects menu more customizable. Anything that extends deeper than a single screen is too long a list. I use just seven of the Effects (and only three of those with any regularity). I'd like to be able to reduce the list down to just "my favourites". My idea for a solution would be as follows:
- Add a new tab to Edit Preferences - Effects
- In this tab show the names of all the installed Effects
- Each Effect would have a tick box beside it.
- If the box was ticked, the Effect would appear in the Effects drop down menu from the Audacity command bar.

All the code routines needed to do this exist somewhere in Audacity right now (i.e. all the pieces of the function are out there - Preferences tabs, tick boxes,drop-down menus).

[steve]

I use just seven of the Effects (and only three of those with any regularity). I'd like to be able to reduce the list down to just "my favourites".

You can remove any/all "plug-in" effects very easily. (plug-in effects are those that appear below the dividing line in the menu).

• Open the Audacity plug-ins folder.
• Create a new folder (call it "backup" or something meaningful)
• Move all of the files from the plug-ins folder into the "backup" folder (except for any that you wish to keep)
• Restart Audacity.

Hotkeys ARE an answer to a different problem: quick access to favorite effects. But they don't make it any easier to explore and experiment with the whole range of effects. For that, we need submenus and categorization.

IN my dream version of Audacity, of course, we'd have full categorization, AND hotkey binding to any effect, AND fully customizable toolbars that would bind to any effect. And in this case, LibreOffice is an example to look at.

The new hotkeys are terrific, but I agree with solanus, "fully customizable" menus would be ideal. +1

[solanus]

Hotkeys will be in v2.0.1 - they are in the current rc2.

That's good, but alone hotkeys aren't the solution - it's like asking for toast with butter and jam, but you only get the jam. To me, categorized menus are the toast - see my earlier posts above.

And while I liked the categorization idea of the earlier beta, I think it would be bad to re-introduce static categories. Nobody would agree on what goes where, and then you'd have the same problem again. Menus and categories need to be customizable, so that users can put their favorites at the top of the menu in the root, and organize new plugin effects .

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the best thing to do is to address all three - menu customization, hotkeys and custom toolbars - as a single project. It would be an excellent GSOC project ...why haven't we been in GSOC since 2009?

Different users work in different ways - some use menus almost exclusively, some like toolbars, others prefer hotkeys.
For me, I use all three.

• Menus are for easy access to ALL the items, and if I want to use less commonly used items, or if I have a brain freeze and can't remember a command or hotkey, or if I want to experiment with new plugins, I want to be able to browse through and find stuff easily.
• Toolbars are for common commands that I use very often - of course, we'd need a lot of icons made...
• Hotkeys are for the commands I know well and use all the time. The problem with hotkeys is that there is a limited number of keys, and many are already assigned to functions in Audacity already. If it gets to the point where I need to assign Ctrl+Alt+Shift+whatever to all my favorite effects, we've lost the convenience factor. So I generally only have a small handful of custom hotkeys.

EDIT: LOL, while I was writing my (wordy) post, PGA and steve kinda beat me to it. Thanks for the +!

[waxcylinder]

@solanus & @PGA

haver you two already voted on the Wiki>Feature Requests for "Effects Categorization" and" Effects customized categories"?
See: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Featu ... hest-rated

If not, would you like me to add your votes?

WC

[PGA]

I use just seven of the Effects (and only three of those with any regularity). I'd like to be able to reduce the list down to just "my favourites".

You can remove any/all "plug-in" effects very easily. (plug-in effects are those that appear below the dividing line in the menu).

I know and I have done! But there's that massive great list of the "standard, as-shipped, hardcoded into the product" Effects of which I use, on a regular basis, just the following: Fade In, Fade Out and Normalize. On an irregular basis: I have also used Changed Tempo and Equalization. The rest are irrelevant for my work with Audacity - at present. I don't want to "kill" them, just "hide" them.

[steve]

But there's that massive great list of the "standard, as-shipped, hardcoded into the product" Effects

Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. There's 25

[PGA]

But there's that massive great list of the "standard, as-shipped, hardcoded into the product" Effects

Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. There's 25

Which is at least 20 more than I need!

[steve]

At least you can now set up hot keys for the 5 that you do use. You may never need to open that menu again

[solanus]

This is illustrative of the wide range of users and practices for Audacity. PGA is on one end of the spectrum: a user that knows the tools he likes, and is able to make things work with just those tools. I'm closer to the other end: I love experimenting, and would install every available effect plugin to play with, if they were easier to browse (*cough*ategories); I also love the Nyquist forum here - new effects and plugins all the time! I suspect that most users fall between these extremes - but IMHO, if you have an app that is designed to be extensible with plugins, it makes sense to make those plugins as easy to use as possible.

[waxcylinder]

... I use, on a regular basis, just the following: Fade In, Fade Out and Normalize. On an irregular basis: I have also used Changed Tempo and Equalization. The rest are irrelevant for my work with Audacity - at present. I don't want to "kill" them, just "hide" them.

Tip: a handy group of four keys that are currently unused are the Alt+arrow keys.

I have:
Alt + <- for Fade-in
Alt + -> for Fade-out (now replaced with Steve's excellent Pro-fade)
Alt + up-arrow for Amplify
Alt + down-arrow for Normalize (just used for DC offset removal)

WC