"Cut Preview" improvements, also an "Uncut Preview"

[Paul L]

The Cut Preview command is bound to C by default, and in Edit Preferences, Playback, you can adjust the duration. I don't know where it is in menus.

I often use it, zoomed in on just a fraction of a second, but playing a half second before and after, which changes the view. What might be nice:
1) No net change of view, though view could still change during the playback.
2) Make it work too when selection has zero duration. Now, it does nothing. (Yes, I have unchecked the "Select all audio..." preference in Tracks.)
3) Make another similar command that plays some context AND the uncut selection too, and likewise leaving view unchanged. Then I can try an effect on the short selection, hear it in context, and easily undo it and try a different effect, without any changes of my view or selection. Call it "Uncut Preview" perhaps.

This would help with fixing subtle bad sounds inside spoken words.

[Gale Andrews]

The Cut Preview command is bound to C by default, and in Edit Preferences, Playback, you can adjust the duration. I don't know where it is in menus.

It isn't in the menus but I don't see a strong reason why Play/Stop and Set Cursor, Play One Second,
Play To Selection or Play Cut Preview should not be in the menus.

I often use it, zoomed in on just a fraction of a second, but playing a half second before and after, which changes the view. What might be nice:
1) No net change of view, though view could still change during the playback.

This is a long-standing problem when you are zoomed in and playback goes past the scroll, not only affecting selections: http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15 .

If you are using the NIghtly Build or from 2.0.4 release onwards, you can use View > Go to Selection Start (CTRL + 4) or View > Go to Selection End (CTRL + 5) to move the selection back into view.

What I do now is just double-click SPACE, which means the cursor or left edge of the selection is then positioned at the start of the visible waveform. Not where it was, but at least in view.

Make it work too when selection has zero duration. Now, it does nothing. (Yes, I have unchecked the "Select all audio..." preference in Tracks.)

So you want to play the cut preview length set in Preferences, centred on the cursor position? I think that might be useful.

For a total preview length (before plus after) of 1 second which you have now, you can actually do that by moving the mouse pointer under the cursor and pressing "1" on the keyboard.

Make another similar command that plays some context AND the uncut selection too, and likewise leaving view unchanged. Then I can try an effect on the short selection, hear it in context, and easily undo it and try a different effect, without any changes of my view or selection. Call it "Uncut Preview" perhaps.

This would help with fixing subtle bad sounds inside spoken words.

Yes I see. I think in practice that many users would click and drag a Quick-Play region on the Timeline to do that.

Would your idea be more convenient though as a second "Effect Preview" preference "Contextual playback before/after selection", together with some way to invoke that type of preview from the effect (for example, a checkbox)?


Gale

[steve]

2) Make it work too when selection has zero duration. Now, it does nothing.

With no selection, nothing will be cut.
Does it make sense to "Preview Cut" if there is no "cut"?

1) No net change of view, though view could still change during the playback.

So, in effect the original view is restored when playback completes?
I think that seems like a useful feature.

[Gale Andrews]

2) Make it work too when selection has zero duration. Now, it does nothing.

With no selection, nothing will be cut.
Does it make sense to "Preview Cut" if there is no "cut"?

Yes it could do, like listening to the area either side of something you "may" want to edit without having to stop and draw a selection.

Several visually impaired users have asked for playback commands related to the cursor such as using Cut Preview when there is no selection, and "Play a certain length from cursor".

1) No net change of view, though view could still change during the playback.

So, in effect the original view is restored when playback completes?
I think that seems like a useful feature.

Or a useful bug fix which should probably be default behaviour. I find the current behaviour a significant annoyance though a few people may prefer to look at where they stopped as they may have a reason for stopping there. They could use SHIFT + A (Stop and Set Cursor) - if they can find it.


Gale

[steve]

Several visually impaired users have asked for playback commands related to the cursor such as using Cut Preview when there is no selection, and play a certain length from cursor.

I can see the sense in the function.
I don't see the sense in calling it Cut Preview when no "cutting" is taking place. Perhaps I'm being too literal, but I like things to do what they say on the tin.

Perhaps as the "1" key is "Plays for one second centered on the current pointer position (not from the current cursor position)", the "2" key could be "Play one second centred on (or either side of) the playback cursor".

[Robert J. H.]

I am visually impaired and here are my views on the subject.
The c preview is fine but maybe just too much in the sense that it plays both, 1 s before and 1 s after the selection. I would prefer if those sections could be played individually.
Imagine me defining a word in a sentence.
I let the sentence play and when it reaches the word I set the left marker.
Now I am going to seek the proper position with the cursor keys. After a while, pressing play gives me the impression that I've found the right start point.
But maybe there's still a little bit attack that is not included? With a proper "play 1 s before" key, this would be easy, unfortunately, the c key does nothing with a single cursor position. However, even if it would play 1 s before and 1 s after, this wouldn't help, since I do not know where the middle is exactly.
The current procedure is to expand the selection to the left and to pay attention, if there is still some clicking (i.e. if there is still sound from the attack). If so, I press the left arrow key expand the selection again and listen again. If there is apparently silence, I have to press right/left and then z (for the zero crossing) and I have found the left border of my desired selection.
I am now ready to search for the right selection border . I press play and set the right marker at a arbitrary position.
The play command is now not useful anymore (especially when the selection is rather long). But fortunately, I can use the c key now.
It is not very efficient thogh, because I always have to listen to the first second too, although the left marker is perfectly set. Furthermore, if the sound before the cut is similar to the one after, the preview won't give me much information, where the cut really will be.

Summary:
The c key gives a good overview when I've set the markers in one go.
For fine positioning, seperate previews for 1 s before cursor position/left marker and 1 s after cursor position/right marker would be much, much better.

[steve]

seperate previews for 1 s before cursor position/left marker and 1 s after cursor position/right marker

By "left marker" and "right marker" I presume that you mean the left and right ends of the selection?
I can imagine that would be very useful for blind users.

[Robert J. H.]

yep, I meant the left and right end of the selection.
You know, english has so many words to describe the boundary of something and some choices are sometimes not so lucky...
We have nearly no limits for the boundaries that verge marginally on the edges of some bordering edges that delimit the frontiers at both ends of the inner and outer bounds of any brink that skirts our ignorance.

The new versions of Audacity seem to include to new hot keys, namely ctrl-4/5 which jump to the left and right end of the selection.
I've not tried those yet and do therefore not know if the commands preserve the selection and have therefore some advantage in regard to the above mentioned procedure. However, I fancy that commands for playing 1 s before cursor/left boundary., 1 s before right boundary and 1 s after right boundary (the normal c shortcut not mentioned) are those that could facilitate my daily work. .

[Gale Andrews]

Perhaps as the "1" key is "Plays for one second centered on the current pointer position (not from the current cursor position)", the "2" key could be "Play one second centred on (or either side of) the playback cursor".

Yes but that is only one second and not a configurable length.

It could be called "Cut/Cursor Preview" for example, or just add it to Playback Preferences as a separately configurable item.


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

The c key gives a good overview when I've set the markers in one go.
For fine positioning, seperate previews for 1 s before cursor position/left marker and 1 s after cursor position/right marker would be much, much better.

I don't know if I am misunderstanding, but Playback Preferences has separate settings for Preview before cut region" and "Preview after cut region".

Do you mean that you want four separately configurable length settings in Playback Preferences

"Play before selection"
"Play after selection"
"Play before cursor"
"Play after cursor"

or that

"Play before selection/cursor"
"Play after selection/cursor"

would do?

I don't see we have enough shortcuts to have:

Press "2" for Play 1 second centred on cursor
Press "3" for Play 1 second before the cursor
Press "4" for Play 1 second after the cursor
Press "5" for Play 2 seconds centred on cursor
Press "6" for Play 3 seconds centred on cursor
Press "7" for Play 1 second before the cursor then 2 seconds after it

and so on.

Yes CTRL + 4 and CTRL + 5 preserve the selection, unlike left and right arrow. Although this is useful in its own right, the main usefulness of these shortcuts is actually as a workaround for problems that ought to be fixed (no return of the view after stop if playback goes past the scroll, and no keyboard method to zoom in/out on the selection edge).


Gale