Status Bar

Peter 13Aug14: ToDo-2 This newly published page is ready for review and merciless editing.

The associated Talk page carries a critique of the Status Bar messages (and related rollover messages).

Currently the only links to it are from hovering over the relevant part of "Bill's-amazing-imagemap" and from the On-Demand Loading and the Recording length pages - do we need/want other links to it?

The Audacity Status Bar is to be found at the bottom of the Audacity window, it cannot be relocated or floated. Its function is to display information about the current state of Audacity.

Audacity version

When you initally run Audacity the Status Bar will show the version of Audacity that you are running:

Actual Rate

Once you have started playing or recording the Actual Rate is displayed at the bottom right of the Status Bar. The "Actual Rate" when recording is the rate communicated by the sound card to Audacity; "Actual Rate" when playing should be the rate communicated by Audacity to the sound card.

Recording length

When recording, the audio data is written to your hard disk. For example, if you just press the red Record button without having yet saved a Project, it's written to Audacity's temporary folder. Therefore, the amount of time you can record for is limited by the available disk space on the drive you are writing to. Audacity lets you know the amount of time you can record for based on that remaining space, giving a clear indication in the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen as to how much time you can record for:

The time remaining depends on the current space on the drive, and on the quality (sample rate and sample format/bit depth) you are recording at.

On-Demand Loading

The percentage of the waveform that has been computed is displayed on the Status Bar, as shown at bottom left of the image above. When multiple files are being imported, the Status Bar will display the overall percentage of the multiple tracks that has been computed. To make the Status Bar display the percentage completion of a particular track, move the mouse over that track.

Status Bar showing On-Demand loading showing import complete and waveform calculation 76 percent complete.

Mixer Toolbar

When you roll-over the sliders in the Mixer Toolbar the Playback and Recording volumes are displayed in the Status Bar.

Other Status Bar displays

When you hover over any track in the window you will get the following message "Click and drag to select audio" advising you how to make selections from that track.

Many other buttons and tools on the Audacity window will display the name of the button or tool in the Status Bar when you roll-over the button or tool.