Hi David!
Here are my thoughts and findings after a first test run.
In the Tracks menu, Mute and Pan now have their own submenus. Whether that's
useful is debatable, because I don't see anyone going through the menu each
time they want to mute or unmute a track. Yes, Mute/Unmute was in the Tracks
menu before, but I never saw the point. Why Mute but not Solo?
Since all the above are found in the Ext-Command menu, they might as well be
left out of the tracks menu, to further slim it.
The same applies to Pan. Why put Pan in the Tracks menu, but not Gain? Again,
Pan and Gain are found in Ext-Command, so why not drop Pan from the Tracks menu?
Regarding the rearrangement of the menus, I can see why some of the changes
would make Audacity easier to work with. Putting all the menu items blindies
have keystrokes for in menus you can hide is a nice touch.
I had to smile at the Cursor submenu in Ext-Command though. Who would go
through the menu to move the cursor right, if they could just press cursor
right? I mean, it's the cursor. It's even got its own Keys.
I don't know what to make of the Tools submenu in Ext-Bar. For instance, what
is Ext-Bar > Tools > Selection Tool supposed to do? I tried it with the
Selection Toolbar enabled as well as disabled and it doesn't seem to have any
effect.
I can't comment on the look of the high contrast theme, being fully blind, but
it's an excellent idea, which I shall recommend to VI-friends.
Unfortunately, all the items in the Ext-Bar > Transport submenu plus a few
others have apparently been renamed, so I need to reassign my key strokes. If I
want to work with this version that is. I'm not yet convinced that it serves me
any better than version 2.1.3.
While the design is more customizable, and the usability improved for newbies,
for my own use of Audacity there doesn’t seem to be an advantage in switching
to version 2.2.0.
Cheers! Robbie
From: audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Bailes
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2017 9:54 AM
To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [audacity4blind] Audacity 2.2.0 release candidate available for testing
For those of you who are interested in testing a release candidate of Audacity
2.2.0, this is a link to the portable version:
https://www.fosshub.com/Audacity-devel.html/audacity-win-2.2.0-rc1.zip
If you want this version of Audacity to use its own separate settings, then
after you have extracted the files, in the folder that contains Audacity.exe
create a folder with the name Portable Settings.
For a summary of new features see:
1. http://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/New_features_in_this_release
2. A section in the introduction of my guide:
http://vip.chowo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/jaws/Audacity-2.2.0-Guide.html
If you find any bugs, or have any comments about this new version, just post
them to this list,
David.
