Timeline

Bill 22Apr11: extensive changes - have I got this right?

• Gale: 24Apr11 Think so - see if you like my design changes. In what I call the "legend", how about images for "selected region", "editing cursor" and with "playback start position cursor" attached to it?
• Bill 24Apr11: Perfect. The legend before the examples is much better, as is the bold header above each example. Added cursor images to the legend.
• Peter 24Apr11: Looks good to me to. A couple of points about the Quick-Play region:
  • Selecting a Quick-Play region and releasing the mouse will not only interrupt any existing playback - it will also interrupt any recording that is ongoing - as I found to my cost recently when I mistakenly clicked in the timeline rather than the track to create a marker label while recording! I regard this as highly undesirable behaviour and strongly feel that recording should not be interruptable from the timeline in this way. What do others think?
    
    • ToDo We either need to document this recording-interrupt behavior on this page as a warning to users, or log it in Bugzilla as a bug to be fixed.
  • It is also possible to select a single-point Click-Play "region" by clicking in the timeline and releasing the mouse. Playback will then start from that point in the timeline (interrupting any existing palyback or recording). I find this a very useful feature and use it all the time while editing as it is much quicker just to click in the timeline than to move the cursor and also press Play. I learned this from a comment of Koz' a while back and I don't recall ever seeing it documented anywhere. I have recommended it to several folk on the forum.

The Timeline displays a horizontal ruler above the tracks measuring time from zero (the start of the track). Depending on zooming the ruler may span minutes of audio or give a "close up" view of a few seconds or fractions of a second.

Legend for symbols displayed on the ruler

• The selected region: (when present) is shown as a shaded region on the ruler. Pressing Play or Record on Transport Toolbar plays or records from the left edge of this region.
• The editing cursor: (always present when there is no selected region) is shown as a black vertical line. When Quick-Play is not active, the playback start position cursor is attached to it . Pressing Play or Record plays from this cursor position.
• The playback cursor: (when playing or paused during play) is shown as a green triangle. Clicking in the Timeline (without dragging) starts immediate "Quick-Play" playback from the click point, continuing to the end of the track.
• The record cursor: (when recording or paused during record) is shown as a red triangle.
• Quick-Play region: A selectable region that always plays "on demand", shown by arrowheads with a line connecting them. Select a region on the ruler by dragging with the mouse, and that region will play as soon as you release the mouse, even if audio is already playing elsewhere. Neither an already selected region nor the editing cursor is affected by Quick-Play.

Examples of the Timeline in use

Standard playback shows: The editing cursor (the black vertical bar) The playback start position cursor (the left-pointing gray triangle with short gray vertical bar to left) When Quick-Play is not active (see below) the editing cursor and the playback start position cursor are always at the same point on the Timeline, and together are called the standard cursor The playback cursor (the green triangle) - playback will continue until stopped..

Recording with no selection present shows: The editing cursor and the playback start position cursor (as above) The recording cursor (the red triangle) - recording will continue until stopped.

After clicking in the Timeline to initiate "Quick-Play": The editing cursor position is unchanged The playback start position cursor moves to the point clicked The playback cursor shows the current playback position.

After clicking and dragging in the Timeline to initiate "Quick-Play" of a region: The editing cursor position is unchanged The playback cursor shows the current playback position The "Quick-Play" region is indicated by the horizontal gray bar with arrows on each end.

After clicking and dragging in the waveform: Instead of the editing cursor, a shaded region shows the time range of the selected audio. The playback region is indicated by the horizontal gray bar with arrows on each end.

For other methods of navigating to playback points or areas, see Playing and Recording.