Selecting Audio - the basics

Peter 09May17: Current page title is a "working title" subject to change.

This is a landing page for the proposed Help button in the error message that the user gets if they try to apply an action that requires a selection with no selection extant. Just the bare minimum here, as users landing here want to get on with applying an effect. They can come back for more, once past that roadblock.

Therefore please do not extend this Page.

• Gale: 09May17: Should this be part of Getting Started? If not perhaps Edit should link here? And no, per Audacity Selection, selecting or autoselecting the entire project is as important to know as selecting a regio (as you say later in the Intro, but contradict at the start). Your second sentence doesn't want "a region" in it, IMO.
  • Peter 10May17: actually James and I have been discussing whether this page should just be a semi-orphan as a landing page for the proposed Help button for "no selection present" - or whether it would be better as the initial link from the front page entry in Using Audacity>Editing with Audacity. We find ourselves favouring the latter as the full page is more than a bit intimidating tending to TL;DR.

    But you raise a good point here Gale. It certainly would make a better newbie "getting started" page linked to from Edit which is part the "getting started" suite of pages. The question remains: do we also want a separate link to this page from Getting Started - and I don't see why not.

    • Gale 11May17: I see two options. a) Link to here from Using Audacity, or b) make this page part of Getting Started, and Using Audacity still links to Audacity Selection. I like the idea of b). If users don't know how to Select All or partially select, that is unlikely to be the only thing they don't understand. With b) they are already inside the noob docs.
  • Peter 10May17: It also begs a further question. There are many places in the Manual that talk about "selection" and link to Selecting Audio, do we want to retain those linking to the detailed page or do we think it better to send them to this simpler new page?
    • Gale 11May17: It might depend on individual cases, but I think most pages should still link to Audacity Selection. The top of it has been somewhat demystified.

This page explains only the basics of selecting audio for typical Audacity use. This involves either:

• selecting or autoselecting the entire project, or
• mouse selecting only a region of audio in one or more tracks.

Once all or a region is selected, you can then change that selection's sound with an effect. Another common action is to delete or move the region of audio.

Selecting the entire project

Peter 11May17: note to Gale: reverting the "Ctrl +A" shortcut to "CTRL + A" as Connie (implicitly) favours such capitalization.

You can select the entire length of all tracks on screen with Select > All or use the shortcut CTRL + A (or Command + A on a Mac).

See also: Automatic Select All, if none selected

Selecting a region using the mouse

The easiest way to select a region of audio is to click the left mouse button anywhere inside of an audio track, then drag (in either direction) until the other edge of your selection is made, then release the mouse.

If Selection tool is not selected (default setting), choose from Tools Toolbar, below:

Automatic Select All, if none selected

There is a setting in Tracks Behaviors Preferences called "Select all then act on entire project, if no audio selected" that auto-selects the entire project (whenever you issue an editing command that depends on a selection) if you have made no explicit time selection.

If this preference is unchecked, all menu items and buttons requiring an audio selection will remain grayed out until audio is selected.

Gale 11May17: Regardless of James's ednote below, that is not fully true. RTP effects will not be grayed out.

James 10May17: ToDo-1 The above sentence will need to change. I'm expecting that we will have a choice of three options for 'Handling of effects when no audio selected:' (1) Grey out (2) Select automatically (3) Warn/Explain. 3 would be the default as being most suitable for newbies. 2 I think is not necessary, but I hear the argument that we should have it. 1 is probably what I would use myself. Am open to better designs and clearer shorter wording.

• Gale 11May17: So now we are adding more complexity that isn't in the Proposal, or rather we now admit the warning is a nuisance for forgetful/careless advanced users as well as the most clueless noobs.

  The new three option suggestion confuses me. Why is it confined to effects? Are we not going to warn for edits like cut and copy, despite we say at the top of this page that edits are a reason for selecting a region?

  Can we please understand once and for all that 3) is not the most useful option for the worst type of noobs that forced us to enable autoselection in the first place. I do not state this for fun. Turning off autoselection by default (necessary for this Proposal) is a considerable risk for user support. This is a highly reasonable assumption based on prior experience. This is why we have to tread so carefully with the dialogue that links to this page. At the moment it reads like "up you" to grandad who is struggling to read an outdated and incorrect USB product manual. If we fall over ourselves to be friendly/persuasive in this dialogue, and point out there that autoselection is an option (for the sake of more advanced users too) we "might" just have something that is not worse or a possible improvement, rather than a potential disaster. Persuasive does not have to mean verbose. I remain very open to discuss this dialogue.

This page is only a brief summary of how to make selections in your project. For further details and visual examples please see the Selecting Audio page.