divide/combine projects?

[cheyrn]

My projects quickly become very awkward to deal with. I would like to choose a few tracks, stuff them into another project then later combine tracks from different projects. I don't think that can be done, right?

If I export mutltiple, it omits silence, at least if I export by track.

If I copied the .aup file and data directory and removed half of the wavetrack elements from each, making sure the names point to the correct files, can I expect that to work now and in the future?

[steve]

If I copied the .aup file and data directory and removed half of the wavetrack elements from each, making sure the names point to the correct files, can I expect that to work now and in the future?

Probably not. Manually editing projects is extremely risky and it is very easy to destroy the project by attempting to do so.

The safe way to make a copy of a project is to open the project in Audacity, "check dependencies" (file menu) and ensure that the project is self contained, then use "Save Project As" (file menu) to save the project with a new name.

Once you have a duplicate copy of the project, you can edit the two copies separately.

When working with complex projects, be sure to make regular backups. "Save Project As", and giving the new project a unique name, is a good way to make a backup copy.

[cheyrn]

Thank you. For dividing the project that works easily.

It makes me think it could be useful for audacity to make the aup format an interchange format, if it isn't already. Or, to say that it has a known structure that could be specified if a spec were made. That way people could write scripts that manipulate the files. When there are changes to the aup format, new release notices could say that the format changed and not necessarily specify what the changes were.

For an example of something maybe useful based on editing the aup file: Along with dividing my projects I also wanted to move half of the tracks. So, I edited the aup file and moved the tracks (essentially I moved tracks that are on hold to the top so that I don't have to drag duplicated tracks over the muted tracks each time). If I had used the UI it would have taken 10 minutes maybe to move the tracks. When moving the tracks is something that I need to deal with in the middle of work on the project, 10 minutes is a very long time.

[steve]

It makes me think it could be useful for audacity to make the aup format an interchange format, if it isn't already. Or, to say that it has a known structure that could be specified if a spec were made. That way people could write scripts that manipulate the files. When there are changes to the aup format, new release notices could say that the format changed and not necessarily specify what the changes were.

The .AUP format is XML.
It is quite possible that people could write scripts that manipulate the files, but to my knowledge no one has done so. The AUP format has hardly changed in years.

We don't encourage people to manually edit the AUP file because we hear so many horror stories of people totally destroying their projects when they attempt to do so.
If you're interested in writing scripts, it could be quite a nice little project. Perhaps something simple at first, like a script to split a project at a given time. Ideally it would be good if the script could run cross-platform so that it is available for all Audacity users.