View Menu

From Audacity Development Manual
Revision as of 12:14, 24 December 2007 by JamesCrook (talk | contribs) (Tool Bars -> Toolbars)
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Menu Description
Contents of the Edit menu

Zoom in Display more detail, i.e finer divisions of time, but for a shorter period of the time.

Zoom Normal Standard level of detail.

Zoom Out Reverse of zoom in.

Fit in Window Zoom to fit the entire duration of the audio to the width of the Audacity screen.

Fit Vertically Makes each track the right height to fit them all on screen.

Zoom to Selection Zoom to fit the selected audio to the width of the Audacity screen.


Collapse All Tracks Make all tracks small in height.

Expand All Tracks Restore all tracks to their normal size.


Show Clipping Show wherever the audio is too loud with a red mark.


History See what edits you have made recently. By clicking on them you can undo (or redo) many steps at once.


Toolbars Change which of the toolbars are shown.

Zoom In

Zooms in on the horizontal axis of the audio, displaying more detail about less time. You can also use the zoom tool to zoom in on a particular part of the window.

Zoom Normal

Zooms to the default view, which displays about one inch per second.

Zoom Out

Zooms out, displaying less detail about more time.

Fit in Window

Zooms out until the entire project just fits in the window.

Fit Vertically

Adjusts the height of all the tracks until they fit in the project window.

Zoom to Selection

Zooms in until the selected audio fills the width of the screen to show the selection in more detail.

Collapse All Tracks

Collapses all tracks to take up the minimum amount of space. To collapse or expand an individual track, click on the triangle on the lower-left of the track label.

Three tracks collapsed to minimum space

Expand All Tracks

Expands all tracks to their original size before the last collapse.

The same three tracks expanded to original size

Show Clipping

Click this menu item to turn display of clipped samples on and off - a check mark in the item indicates that display is turned on. A clipped sample is one that is outside the volume envelope defined by +1.0 to - 1.0 dB (this is the vertical scale to left of the waveform when default Waveform view is enabled, as shown below). Clipped samples are bad, as they cause distortion and lost audio information - avoid them where possible, for example by setting the recording level correctly. A clipped positive sample will have a red vertical line through it extending from the top of the waveform to the center line. A clipped negative sample will have the line extending from the bottom of the waveform to the center line. Turn "Show Clipping" off if it behaves sluggishly on slower machines.

Clipped positive and negative samples marked in red

By going to Analyze > Find Clipping, clipping can also be shown diagrammatically in a Label Track so that screen-readers can access the information.

History...

Brings up the history window. It shows all the actions you have performed during the current session, including importing. The right-hand column shows the amount of hard disk space your operations used. You can jump back and forth between editing steps quite easily by simply clicking on the entries in the window.

The history window can be kept open at all times. It doesn't interfere with any other operations.

Toolbars...

These commands hide or show the six Audacity Toolbars:

Tools Control Edit Mixer Meter Transcription