Solo button: Program and Manual

[waxcylinder]

"... the hordes of other indexers still to come."
hahaha

as a starter I added entries for Solo, Mute, Pan and gain in the Index as sub-entries under the pre-existing Track Control Panel entry

Um, yes, but... The index entry for "Track Control Panel - Solo Button" goes to the right place, the Solo section of the Tracks page. But on that page: "There are two other options for Solo button behavior in the Tracks Preferences." That link goes to the top of the Track Preferences page, which does not have a text-based link to Solo (i.e, searching that page for the word "solo" comes up empty). It really should go to the Tracks Behaviors Preferences page, and to be really helpful, there should be a tag on the Solo section at the bottom of that page, so that a "#Solo_Button" tag would work.

Unless I've missed something, this is the only item (in this scope) which deserves this special treatment; the Mute, Pan and Gain elements do not have any Preferences attached to them.

It's possible that I'm asking for too much, and I completely understand if that's true. All I know is, I'm stumbling through the documentation, and it's currently non-trivial to find what I'm looking for.

GOOD catch Win

I've fixed that and I did as you asked and added an anchor for "Solo" on the Tracks Behaviors Prefs page - but because the Solo section is right at the bottom of the page it showas a lot of other stuff above it. I'm thinking it may look better to just link to the top of the page (where the dialog is seen showing Solo - and you can search for the text "Solo").

See what you think ...

Peter

[waxcylinder]

Win,

is it OK for you just having "Solo button" under "Track Control Panel" in the "T" section ?

Or would it be good to have a duplicate entry in the "S" section ?

Peter

[whbjr]

I've fixed that and I did as you asked and added an anchor for "Solo" on the Tracks Behaviors Prefs page - but because the Solo section is right at the bottom of the page it showas a lot of other stuff above it. I'm thinking it may look better to just link to the top of the page (where the dialog is seen showing Solo - and you can search for the text "Solo").

Well, I have to admit that I prefer it with the tag and the jump to the bottom of the page... but if that sets a bad precedent, I can do without it.

For the index, again I think it would open the floodgates - if the Solo button gets an entry, then all sorts of "small" single-paragraph items should also be promoted. Let's keep it as-is until the next Solo fan shows up.

Again, thanks for all your work!

- Win

[steve]

Try clicking on the Solo button on the imagemap on the front page of the Manual ...

For a program which is very, very impressive in the ways it accommodates the vision-impaired, the manual sure does rely heavily on "click the image."

I'm guessing that you are not a blind user, and have not tried using the manual with a screen reader.
The Audacity team invest a great deal of time and effort trying to make the application and its documentation as accessible as possible to all.

The clickable image on the front page of the manual is a tremendous convenience for sighted users that use pointer devices, but note that each interface element is also numbered and corresponds with an accessible text link (in this case "13 Track Control Panel".)

You may also notice that there is a small text item above the image that says "Skip the image". That is for the benefit of screen reader users so that they don't need to tab through click target in the image map.

[waxcylinder]

I've fixed that and I did as you asked and added an anchor for "Solo" on the Tracks Behaviors Prefs page - but because the Solo section is right at the bottom of the page it showas a lot of other stuff above it. I'm thinking it may look better to just link to the top of the page (where the dialog is seen showing Solo - and you can search for the text "Solo").

Well, I have to admit that I prefer it with the tag and the jump to the bottom of the page... but if that sets a bad precedent, I can do without it.

Hi Win,

No, not a "bad precedent" - our normal procedure is to to link to the anchor (how much of the rest of the page you see is down to your window size).

And I found (and fixed) another place where a link should now be going to the "Tracks Behaviors Preferences

Peter.

[whbjr]

Try clicking on the Solo button on the imagemap on the front page of the Manual ...

For a program which is very, very impressive in the ways it accommodates the vision-impaired, the manual sure does rely heavily on "click the image."

I'm guessing that you are not a blind user, and have not tried using the manual with a screen reader.

You are correct! However, when reading manuals, I am much more text-oriented than image-oriented, so I'm likely to look at the image and say "Yes, that's what my screen looks like," then move down to the words to find the answer to my question.

The clickable image on the front page of the manual is a tremendous convenience for sighted users that use pointer devices, but note that each interface element is also numbered and corresponds with an accessible text link (in this case "13 Track Control Panel".)

Good point, but this is (to coin an expression) the exception that proves the rule. This image clearly has numbered sections, and the text-based index to those numbers is directly above the image. If that were the case for all the other screenshot-clickable-images, I would have no trouble navigating the manual.

You may also notice that there is a small text item above the image that says "Skip the image". That is for the benefit of screen reader users so that they don't need to tab through click target in the image map.

Ah - I had not seen that. But that skips to the Tutorials section, which is nothing like an index or list.

- Win

[steve]

If you want to discus accessibility, you'd do better to discus with David Bailes who knows far more about this that I do. He has been our accessibility advisor for the past 10+ years and is is contactable via the Audacity4blind mailing list.