User:Billw58/Working with Audio Tracks
- Bill 03Dec11: Peter, see my comments on the Audio Tracks page. Perhaps this page could be the "read more" page linked to at the end of the Audio Tracks page, and thus would lose the first two sections and possibly the "Mixing" section.
Under that scheme, the "Understanding Audacity" section of the front page might look like this:- Digital Audio
- What is an Audacity Project?
- Audacity Setup and Configuration
- Playing and Recording
- Audacity Waveform
- Audio Tracks
- Working with Audio Tracks
- Mixing Audio Tracks
- Undo, Redo and History
- Peter 3Dec11: Yup,that menu structure for "Understanding Audacity" would work well for me. And yes I would support your idea of linking to this page from the end of Audio Tracks page. Also, on third thoughts, I agree with you about not shunting this over to tutorials.
- Gale 04Dec11:
Thanks again for all the work and thought!
I totally agree about not modifying tutorials in any of this. For sure, exclude "The Waveform Display" and "Audio Tracks" here. In the resulting list of links in Understanding Audacity, I would expect Audio Tracks to precede Audacity Waveform.
The intention of Understanding Audacity as I see it was "semi-tutorial" - an overview/pulling together/re-ordering/expansion of topics that must necessarily be separated and kept non-elaborate in the Reference.
Personally I wouldn't rearrange things as proposed, but I definitely don't object to anything, with the exception that I strongly think Audio Tracks should allude to "splitting and joining" and have an image of left and right tracks, even at risk of duplicating User:Billw58/Splitting_and_Joining_Tracks. We can't assume people will dig into "Understanding Audacity". We know split/join is missed/misunderstood. We already have the topic duplicated at Track Drop-Down Menu. If we go ahead with having "advanced" examples and images for it at User:Billw58/Splitting_and_Joining_Tracks, let's consider if the Track Drop-Down Menu text needs trimming.
Disadvantages I see of what Bill proposes/ leaving other things unchanged:
- "Default Waveform view" in Audacity Waveform is a near duplication of the first part of Audio Tracks; Both Waveform views in Audacity Waveform duplicate the same sections in Track Drop-Down Menu.
- Tracks, clips and waveforms seem pretty interlinked features to me - a track is a clip is in the waveform. There may be dangers in splitting.
- User:Billw58/Splitting_and_Joining_Tracks may become harder to find/ seem more of a fringe topic than it is.
- Linking to Audio Tracks as a primary section when it is not in Understanding Audacity confuses me.
- "Working with Audio Tracks" (this page) has no images and reads like the intro to a dissertation to me at the moment. Boring. Is it relevant, asks user? Maybe this could be ameliorated by including images or content from User:Billw58/Channels Tracks and Clips. I don't like that page as a standalone.
How I would do it if it was me:
- Audio Tracks loses the detailed stuff about splitting and joining but it should allude to it and should show a mono track and a left/right split from stereo.
- Audacity Tracks and Clips remains. The Tracks content has stuff from Audacity Waveform and User:Billw58/Splitting_and_Joining_Tracks. The content should prominently reference Audacity Selection and Sync-Locked Tracks, definitely with an example of a Sync-Lock scenario. Clips content is as we have now.
- This has the advantage of having an integrated page with everything imaged and important subsidiary pages linked to and exampled. It almost is "Working with Audio Tracks".
- The obvious disadvantage is the length. Still I reckon it would be at least four scrolls less than the Edit Menu. To reduce the length, possibly the meat of Splitting/Joining could go to Track Drop-Down Menu - that does have a case IMO. Length could be ameliorated by an intelligent TOC like in Edit Menu.
- A very minor disadvantage is that we reduce the number of links in Understanding Audacity by one instead of two - my scheme gives:
Digital Audio What is an Audacity Project? Audacity Setup and Configuration Playing and Recording Mixing Audio Tracks Audacity Selection Audacity Tracks and Clips Sync-Locked Tracks Undo, Redo and History Zooming
I guess much of this boils down to my preference to keep together things that belong together. I accept length as the price as I personally get confused by broken up sections > Next > Next > Next. If we vote for Bill's scheme, perhaps we can mitigate such reservations as I have. I have not reviewed content in detail but it is probably good enough for Beta. We can tweak definitively when the structure is agreed.
- Bill04Dec11:
Gale, thanks for your detailed feedback!
- I agree that this page looks bare and the user has no encouragement (other than the desire to learn how to use Audacity) to follow the links provided. It was an experiment that didn't work and we can discard it.
- I would not mind putting all of User:Billw58/Splitting_and_Joining_Tracks into Track Drop-Down Menu (but see below). I'd rather put it there than in Audacity Tracks and Clips. I'd like to keep Audio Tracks as a pure "reference" page and thus not get into the options in the Track Drop-Down Menu on that page. My objection to putting details of split/join tracks on the Audacity Tracks and Clips page is based on the duplication of the terms "split" and "join". We use them to mean two different things in two contexts. We "split" a track into clips, but we also "split" a stereo track into its component channels. I think it would be confusing to talk about these two different operations on the same page. OTOH that might be an opportunity to highlight this duplication in terminology.
- I think we could lose Audacity Waveform and integrate some of the content of that page into Audio Tracks in the Display section of that page, thus removing some duplication of content and losing one link in the "sea" under "Understanding Audacity". Acc/to Peter there would be 25 or so links to change.
- Audacity Tracks and Clips would talk exclusively about clips, and would look more like Talk:Audacity Tracks and Clips, possibly with the "Channels, Tracks and Clips" section restored. User:Billw58/Channels Tracks and Clips can be discarded.
- The disadvantage to this, in my mind, is that splitting and joining tracks ends up in the Reference section rather than the Understanding section (inside of Track Drop-Down Menu). Having its own page does not necessarily imply that it is a fringe topic, but instead an important one that deserves its own page. If it had its own page we could link to it from both Audio Tracks and Track Drop-Down Menu. Peter, I know, would like to have a link in the "Advanced Topics" section for splitting and joining tracks.
- So my "compromise" proposal is this:
- User:Billw58/Splitting_and_Joining_Tracks becomes a manual page
- Audio Tracks "alludes" to splitting and joining tracks and links to Splitting and Joining Tracks. I'd rather not have images of splitting and joining on the Audio Tracks page but if we do have them I'd make special smaller ones so they did not break up the page too much.
- Audacity Waveform is integrated into Audio Tracks avoiding duplication but still getting the points across about peak/RMS, dB view and showing clipping - but I'd remove the section on "avoiding and repairing clipping" which I think is swinging toward the "tutorial" side of the pendulum and should not be on a Reference page - a link to appropriate pages (e.g. setting levels, clip fix effect) in a note div might be appropriate and sufficient.
- Track Drop-Down Menu links to Splitting and Joining Tracks but does not have images.
- Audacity Tracks and Clips is about clips exclusively
- Splitting and Joining Tracks appears as a link in the "Advanced Topics" section.
Working with Audio Tracks
It is likely that most of the work you will be doing with Audacity will involve recording, editing and otherwise manipulating audio tracks. The following pages give information about specific aspects of audio tracks and how to use the tools that Audacity provides.
- Peter 3Dec11: Yes, this page works much better for me without these two sections. Try logging out and then reading the page so you don't see the editormotes.
The Waveform Display
Audacity Waveform shows how Audacity displays audio waveforms in an audio track.
Audio Tracks
Audio Tracks gives details on what is displayed in an audio track and the controls associated with an audio track.
Audio Selection
Audacity Selection talks about the special characteristics of audio selection, the methods for selecting audio in a track and the features Audacity provides to help you make exactly the selection you need.
Splitting and Joining Tracks
User:Billw58/Splitting_and_Joining_Tracks shows how to use commands in the Track Drop-Down Menu to split a stereo track into two single-channel tracks and how to join two single-channel tracks into a one stereo track.
Clips
Audacity Tracks and Clips introduces the concept of clips within an audio track and how to create, merge and move clips.
Sync-Locked Tracks
Sync-Locked Tracks describes this feature which allows you to keep tracks in sync with each other when performing editing operations on one track.
Zooming
Zooming explains how to zoom in and out to see less or more of the audio waveform.
