| From "David Bailes" <
drbailes@...>
| Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:33:22 +0100
| Subject: [Audacity-devel] EXPERIMENTAL_MODULES
> On 6/14/08, Gale Andrews <
gale@...> wrote:
> >> If there's no selected time-range, the left and right arrow move the
> >> cursor. If there is a selected time-range, the left and right arrow
> >> move to the start and end of the selected time-range respectively.
> >> (Similar to Microsoft Word)
> >
> > And similar to many other document editors too I see, thanks.
> > Personally I just hardly ever use arrow with a selected region
> > because it destroys the selection. Sometimes you want that, but
> > more often I use the menu items, which allow you to keep the
> > selection region. So though I'd be happy to give those two
> > menu items a shortcut, I don't see that could be left/right arrow,
> > because that behaves differently.
>
> In Audacity 1.3.3, using either the menu items to move to the start or
> end of a selection
> or the left and right arrows has the same effect: the cursor is placed
> at either the start or end of the selection, and the selection is
> removed. This is how I think it was intended to work.
> In Audacity 1.3.4 and later, the arrow keys still have the same
> effect. If you use one of the menu items, then nothing happens the
> first time, and then if you immediately repeat the menu item, then the
> selection is removed and the cursor is moved to the start or end of
> the track. I think this is a bug or it's now working as intended and
> I've lost the plot.
When you use the menu items the first time, the cursor is moved to
start or end of the selection, but you can't see the cursor until you
play the selection or use the arrow keys to move the cursor a little
way from where it is. I sometimes find this useful, but it's the
selection that's played, not from the cursor; and if you play, the
selection disappears on stop. As you say, running the menu item
a second time jumps to track start or end, so I think you're right,
it's a bug and needs to revert to 1.3.3 behaviour.
> >> This then implies CTRL + SHIFT + HOME
> >> > for "Select Track Start to Cursor" and CTRL + SHIFT + END for "Select
> >> > Cursor to Track End. CTRL + SHIFT when used for selections, contract
> >> > them, but this usage expands them. David?
> >> Two issues:
> >> - people are used to using home and end with their current meanings,
> >> there has to be a strong reason for changing them.
> >>- as pointed out by Gale, using ctrl+shift+home/end doesn't fit well
> >> with ctrl+shift+left/right arrow to contract a selected time-range.
> >
> > I think greater similarity to document usage plus Vaughan's mnemonic
> > reasoning could add up to a strong case for changing them. Is it
> > possible to use ALT + SHIFT + arrow for the contractions? That also
> > removes the objection that in this case CTRL is being used to do
> > something "smaller".
>
> I was under the impression that alt was being avoided because there
> isn't a mac equivalent? Though it would be useful to have about eight
> more modifier keys.
That had slipped my mind, I know the Mac Option key that does for ALT
won't work with menus - anyone confirm it can't be used as a shortcut
modifier either? If true, unfortunately we seem to have 18 instances of
ALT for shortcuts already.....
>
> A case could be made either to leave Home and End to move to time zero
> and end of all tracks, and then have Ctrl + Home and Ctrl + End to
> move to start and end of selected tracks - the overriding
> consideration being not to change the existing meanings of Home and
> End.
> Or to have Ctrl + Home and Ctrl + End to move to time zero and the end
> of all tracks, and have Home and End to move to the start and end of
> the selected tracks - the overriding consideration being to fit in
> with the convention that Ctrl implies a larger effect.
> In both cases one would just ignore the slight mismatch with
> ctrl+shift+left/right arrow contracting the selection.
>
> > And as a sighted user I've always wished that if I expand a selection
> > right, that left arrow would contract that same edge, then a modifier
> > would let me use left or right arrow to modify the opposite selection
> > edge. I can't say how many times I've instinctively tried to use
> > the opposite arrow key to contract the same edge. Anyone else
> > feel this, and would such a change be impossible for VI users?
>
> I don't think it would be a problem for VI users. It's probably easier
> for them to use the spin boxes in the Selection bar, because using the
> arrow keys they miss out on the visual feedback as to how much they're
> changing the selection. I found it initially confusing, but not a big issue.
Home/End for start/end of project confused me for a while when I first
used Audacity, so if Home/End changed to start/end of track, we could
count greater intuitiveness for new users as an offsetting benefit. I don't
think it unreasonable for the majority of users who will come to 1.4
from 1.2 that they should find some shortcuts different. If we make
that change, we can better fit the convention of CTRL implying a larger
effect. Even if we did not make that change, moving to SHIFT + left/right
arrow operates on left selection edge, CTRL + SHIFT + left/right works
on right edge might make less of a mismatch in that CTRL does not
exclusively contract. And for us two at least, it would have confused us
less when we started to use Audacity.
Gale
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