Talk:FAQ

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FAQ update Plan - structure

After looking at the existing FAQs in some detail I note that there are very few really short ones and accordingly I'm coming round to supporting James' idea of one FAQ per page. (James says "That works better for internet searches than all FAQ questions on one page.")

On the subsection pages I would retain the link to the actual page with a brief one-liner description (to encourage click-through).

A paradigm for this is my (as yet unpublished) FAQ on "Error while opening sound device". I would propose placing just the first three sentences ( above the"General" title) with a link on the relevant FAQ subsection page and the publishing the full article as a page of its own, linked to from the FAQ subsection page. Long articles this just cannot really be countenanced on the FAQ subsection pages as Gale has opined before

  • Gale: 14Apr12: I like the FAQ section pages containing the text of all the FAQ's so as to encourage reading of more of them. But in order to handhold, some of the FAQ's must include steps which makes them long. We know there are at least ten (?) FAQ's that could usefully be added, so this "may" make some section pages too long if they include the text.

    If we have one FAQ per page, I think the main FAQ page should possibly only contain section links, especially the way I see it going with expanding numbers of FAQ's. Comments?

  • Peter 16Apr12: In take your point about the expanding numbers of FAQs - so I agree that the main FAQ page should contain only section links, perhaps with having short explanatory text. It would be good if the main FAQ page could fit without scrolling. There are quite a lot of longish FAQs so I am increasingly in favour of the one per page approach.


FAQ update Plan - From the Ideas for new FAQs: ones I plan to publish

Please indicate any that should not be transcribed into the FAQs.
And please suggest any alternataive subsection locations.

  • Can I record from a multi-channel device (more than stereo)? – to be added to the Recording section
  • Can I record from two microphones (or even two sound cards) at the same time? (using Gale’s suggested text). – to be added to the Recording section
  • Recording from YouTube does not work. (by linking to the tutorial) – to be added to the Recording section
  • I've upgraded to Vista/ Windows 7. Why is there no "Stereo Mix" / "What U Hear" option. (by linking to the Wiki article) – to be added to the Recording section
  • Can I create Ringtones with Audacity? (by linking to the tutorial) - where would this go???
  • Why does my file import with a hatched pattern then slowly change to a waveform? (link to On-Demand Loading) – to be added to the Opening & Saving Files section
  • Does Audacity support low latency ASIO drivers?" (link to Wiki article) – to be added to the About Audacity section
  • I copied the .aup file to another computer or sent it by e-mail to a friend, but now when I open it there's no sound. Why? (link to Audacity Projects page) – to be added to the Opening & Saving Files section
  • Why do I see a lot of vertical red lines in the track I just recorded? (link to Audacity Waveform page) – to be added to the Editing and recording sections
  • I'm overdubbing vocals but my voice gets more and more out of step with the music track (link to Overdubbing tutorial). – to be added to the Recording section
  • How do I make a recording without small skips or duplications? (link to Wiki stuff) – to be added to the Recording section
  • Can Audacity preview or apply effects live, in real time? – to be added to the About Audacity section
  • How do I find which Audacity version I have, and if this is the latest version? (using supplied text) - – to be added to the About Audacity section

I Propose to create a new FAQ section called “Errors”

(suggestions for a different title welcomed). It would contain:

  • "Error not well formed (invalid token) at line x" (not sure about this one as Gale is not convinced it still happens in 2.0)
  • Why do I get the following error message when I hit the record button: "Error while opening sound device - – also to be added to the Recording and Playback sections?
  • How do I prevent the computer rebooting when I play or record in Audacity? (using Gale’s suggested text drawn from [email protected] ) – also to be added to the Recording and playback sections?
  • And how about adding Snap-To advice until that gets fixed???


FAQ update Plan - Old - need merging or deleting: ones I plan to publish

  • How can I help to improve Audacity? – to be added to the About Audacity section - add link to th Wiki page
  • I found a bug! Now what? - to be added to the proposed Errors section
  • Windows: What do I do with the .exe file? – to be added to the Installation and Plugins section
  • Windows: How do I uninstall Audacity? – to be added to the Installation and Plugins section
  • How do I mix two tracks together? – to be added to the Editing section
  • Can I remove the vocals from a recording? – add to the Editing section and link to the new tutorial on VR
  • When I try to record harmonies with myself, why are the two tracks out of sync? – this is effectively a duplicate of the overdubbing FAQ in the Proposed FAQs above –merge the two
  • Why doesn't Audacity ship with an MP3 encoder? – to be added to the Installation and Plugins section
    • I can’t handle the Mac and Unix ones on this page as I have no understanding of that technology



Archive material

Redundant editornote moved to talk page

Peter 19Oct11: I propose that we should change the "FAQ" menu item in the navigation side bar to "Frequently Asked Questions".
  • Upsides:
  1. Clarity of purpose
  2. The acronym is somewhat geeky and may not be well understood by many of our novices
  3. It aligns more with this actual page title: "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)"
  • Downsides:
  1. The proposed "Frequently Asked Questions" would overflow/wrap onto two lines in the nav. sidebar

If we do make the proposed change, should we also retitle this page to "Frequently Asked Questions", dropping the trailing "( FAQ)"?

  • Gale 22Oct11: Well I tried widening the sidebar and having "Frequently Asked Questions" as the link, but the wrap sets in as soon as you zoom (or visit the FAQ, which boldens the text). The wrap does not set in with zoom on my test site with the same code, so I figure the difference is that on the Manual Wiki we have enabled Wikitext in the Sidebar. This gives more flexibility but more importantly was the way to hide the "For Editors" box from logged out users. Of course there "may" be some other reason but this is the problem with trying to do this stuff with Wikis.

    Looking at it on my site, I don't really like it, maybe it's just too long with the bullet points, but I think it *would* look good without the bullet points. It should not be too hard to lose the bullets, but that has implications for the "Reference" section in the Sidebar here.

    Or, go for the symbol idea (which we use on the Forum), and of course show the same symbol in the TOC.

    • Peter 23Oct11: Thanks for trying Gale, but having seen how much it widens the nav menu bar I would not want to lose real estate for the meat of the Wiiki text (especially as the menu remains at the top of the page as you scroll down - some site have nav bars that move down & up in line with your scrolling so thay are always on display. Nor would I would want to lose the bullet points. So for me it is either word-wrap or sticking with FAQ )or the symbol idea you suggest, but I'd rather stick with FAQ in that case. Actually, I've always preferred sites that list the plural FAQs rather than just FAQ - as that can be read and vocalized as "facts" which carries some resonance I think.
    • Gale: 24Oct11: Wrap is out I think because James has previously expressed strong opposition to it on the main Wiki. I am not at all wedded to bullet points in the navbar, you could differentiate with lines or spaces and it would look much more "modern". Of course you could argue you should go the whole way with a different skin. "Frequently Asked Questions" would look fine in the navbar on the main site I think.

      Unfortunately the hover text for the FAQ link here says "FAQ" (the URL name of the page) and I don't currently know a Wiki way to display arbitrary hover text for a link or image link. Moving the page to "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" isn't an option. I don't like "FAQs" much myself and doubt it helps the subject problem a great deal. Doesn't leave us with much choice than the symbol if no-one wants to lose the navbar bullets.

  • Gale 26Dec11: Two variants with no bullet for first order li.

    Frequently Asked Questions wraps when on the page as here but not on Talk page (all other pages).

    Do we want to get rid of some/all bullets anyway, now we got rid of them in FAQ page?

    If we don't want to write out "Frequently Asked Questions" then I quite like having a query icon. We could show it in the TOC too?




More on Frequently Asked Questions written in full in sidebar

see also editornote in article for how it looks when ON the page (wraps)

below is how it looks when NOT on the page (two variants)



More on the Role of the SF FAQ after 2.0

See below for an earlier discussion from 2010.
This discussion is transferred from a recent email thread amongst the core manual team.

Gale wrote 20Dec11:

>Another baton not picked up is translations for the FAQ's moved into the >Manual. We can't go into 2.0 with Manual FAQ competing with ancient >FAQ's on: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq . >I see this as P2.

And Gale subsequently wrote 20Dec11:

>The SF FAQ IMO should after 2.0 just be links to the (currently five) >FAQ sections in the Manual. Vaughan sees a problem with that in >that the current translations of the (mostly outdated) SF FAQ's >would be lost. It's less of a problem than he thinks, I feel, because >only about six languages actually have near-complete web >translations. > >So I see the "solution" as copying the translations into the Manual, >where the content still approximately resembles that of the Manual >FAQ's. Then we ask translators to address the Manual FAQ's like >they would if they were on SF.


Peter responded 21Dec11: I thought we all (me, Gale & James) agreed nearly two years ago now that the manual was to be *the* place for FAQs rather than the SF site. The discussion back then was that once 1.4/2.0 was released we (Gale, James?) would thin out ot the SF to a bare minimum. On the Talk page for the manual's FAQ (i.e. this page) James gave as a primary reason our easier ability to update the manual wiki rather than the cumbersome processes for updating the SF site (to which few of us have editorial access) and I fully support and endorse this reasoning.

Now I accept the responsibility of not picking up the baton 2-3 years ago of not moving the translations when I moved the original SF FAQ entries to the manual. I tried and failed (Gale gave me instructions) - my tries screwed up the manual so badly I abandoned the task.

The problem now is that since I moved those FAQs they have been maintained an much updated over that period that they have been in the manual. So doubt that there is much value at all in blindly copying the translations over from SF site - they are likely to be very out of date. I also recall that when moving the native English FAQs a large amount of the expended effort went into fixing and testing the links (a lot of them).

So much better, in my view, would be to abandon the SF translations and ask the translators to take responsibility for translating the current FAQ material in the manual as then that will be up to date.



Role of the SF FAQ after 2.0

Gale: Is this meant to mirror the website FAQ or to be different? Shouldn't the two match at the point of release of 1.4.0?

James: I think this should be the 'master copy' for the FAQ. I'd rather we had a FAQ on a wiki where we can quickly update and improve than on a website where there's red tape to the slightest change. I'd be fine with the Sourceforge FAQ disappearing once we have its contents here. If we want to keep the sourceforge FAQ, then some way to publish this one over there, to save us from duplicated work.
  • Peter 7Mar10: For a while now the FAQ in the manual has had exactly the same content as that on the Sourceforge site. We should not be maintaining two copies of exactly the same content. So I support James' suggestion that the Sourceforge FAQ should be removed.
  • Gale: 7Mar10: I was always supportive of moving when we released 1.4/2.0. Until then, the Manual FAQ needs updating for 2.0 (something I've said I would do), while the SF FAQ still needs to refer to both Beta and non-Beta . In practice, the SF FAQ has always ignored the Beta version, which I'm slowly changing. For this reason, the Manual FAQ is not the same as the SF FAQ the last time Peter synchronised it (see the VST FAQs for example).
    Another short-term factor against moving the SF FAQs is that they lose their translations. I think Peter was going to copy the translations from SF FAQ to Manual FAQ (I gave some instructions) but this hasn't happened. We won't move to Manual FAQ until that happens. Meantime for English FAQs I think we could either
    1. continue to slowly adjust the FAQs in both places so they match, or
    2. slowly add Beta information to the SF FAQs and modify the Manual FAQs so they reflect Beta only.
    I think 2) is better, and means we don't have to keep comparing the two FAQs. If the translation does not match the Manual content, we can note that. We just have to stress the importance of translating the Manual as well as the site. Also the link to FAQs on the Wiki front page should perhaps be diverted back to SF, or include both FAQs, given there is no immediate prospect of 2.0.
    Currently only myself and occasionally Richard work on the SF site (it's a clumsy job doing PHP edits and then pushing the changes at the command line, both these things due to having translations).


Images in the Manual FAQ?

James: I think the FAQ should not have images in it. Longer answers (with images) when they are needed should be linked to as 'tutorial pages'. This way the FAQ is in the tradition of usenet FAQs where people can capture it as a plain text file.

Gale: I am in two minds about images. The Wiki does give us some opportunity to include them in the FAQ. I agree the FAQs must be concise, but once again some users have felt they are (were) not detailed enough and sometimes images can actually save text. I would not want to rule images out at the moment. If you look at a Wiki page with images, say: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mixing_stereo_tracks_to_mono_in_your_Project
and just use Windows Clipboard and Notepad, it captures nicely with the image Alt text replacing the images. And many users will have more sophisticated clipboards/text programs than those.


One page for Manual FAQ or several?

Gale: The SF FAQ has separate pages for every FAQ; at the moment the Manual FAQ has all the FAQs on one page.

  • Is it better to have at least separate pages for each section of the FAQ (Recording, Editing and so on), then instead of a contents table, the main FAQ page just has grouped links to anchors on each of the FAQ section pages?
  • Or if we keep the FAQ on one page, the Table of Contents is huge. I'm inclined to have headings for only the FAQ sections, then the Contents only needs seven or eight entries.

I think either of the above encourages reading of multiple FAQs. The SF idea does lead to people reading some FAQs but not others, demonstrated repeatedly on -help list.


Peter: I support the former: a page per section and a contents list of sections on the main FAQ page


Peter: In a one page FAQ, or even in a one page per section FAQ, many of the links to other FAQ articles are now somewhat ridiculous as they now link to a piece of text which is either immediately above or immediately below the current article.

Gale, 06May08, 20:01 UTC: Links immediately below is a bit of a problem. It might be better to say " See also the next FAQ below "Why can't I play MIDI files" ". Links above should remain as links, because the user may go to the FAQ that has the link as an anchor, and then can't see the question above, however near it is. For now, leave the internal links as you've done them (thanks for that). It's something we can decide when the structure including all the questions and their order is finalised.


Customised Bullet Points for FAQ navigation

Gale: 27 Jan 11: Rather than

> Forward To: FAQ:Editing

< Back to: FAQ:Recording

|< Index of Frequently Asked Questions

wouldn't it be nicer to have the >    <    |<    as custom bullet images to left of the link?

To make the link e.g. 

<ul><li class="fwd">Forward to FAQ:Editing</li></ul>

I can arrange this if we think it's a good idea.

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