John, I suggest you make a test recording and play with the
features/commands Thomas and I have mentioned. Regarding what you
describe as the two functions of the arrow keys, it is not so strange
once you have done a bit of experimenting. Clearly, pressing left or
right arrow key can only clear a selection if a selection has been
made. While you cannot imagine when you would do that, I both do it a
lot and find it most useful. If - say - you have selected a section of
audio and have added an effect to it you may want to listen to it
several times. Once satisfied, press right arrow and then pressing
either spacebar or shift-a will start playing from the end of what was
selected.
Regarding keyboard commands, the news is not ideal. You get to keyboard
commands through Preferences. Unfortunately, the assigned keyboard
commands are not accessible through VoiceOver. You can export the
current assignments to an xml file and, if desired, edit and import.
Having learned much through going through the key assignments on Windows
machines, this is a pain.
Anyway, have a play and discover the idiosyncrasies and, as Thomas said,
the benefits of Audacity.
I will be away for several days, so will be silent here until the middle
of next week.
Andrew
On 3/02/2017 2:03 AM, John Covici wrote:
That clarifies things a bit. One more question -- how do I look at
the keystrokes and possibly add a keystroke? Give me the procedure on
Windows as well, but I am particularly interested in doing this on
the Mac.
Thanks again.
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 09:08:51 -0500,
Thomas Byskov Dalgaard wrote:
Hi John!
Yes, when pressing shift+a you can move the cursor with left or right arrow
keys.
You pause by pressing p. Resume playback again by pressing p again.
Best regards Thomas
Den 2. feb. 2017 kl. 15.05 skrev John Covici <covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Does the same apply if I use shift -a to start and stop playback? And
how do I pause rather than stop playback?
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 09:02:19 -0500,
Thomas Byskov Dalgaard wrote:
Hi John!--
When I described the arrow keys was when moving the start or end of the
selection.
The arrow keys behave different when your audio is paused and when it is
playing.
When you press the spacebar to stop the audio, you move the actual cursor left
or right with the arrow keys.
If you have selected something though, the shift and shift-command combinations
must be applied to shrink or extend the selection.
Hope this helps
Best regards Thomas
Den 2. feb. 2017 kl. 14.29 skrev John Covici <covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
The way voiceover works, it expects the program to conform to theMac
standards and makes no allowances. So the developer will have to make
Audacity do all the labels and other functions that vo requires.
But back to my question -- you have described two functions for the
left and right arrow keys -- under which circumstances do which of
these multiple functions apply?
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 06:42:20 -0500,
Thomas Byskov Dalgaard wrote:
Hi John!--
No, I have never tried Protools.
I actually think Audacity does a very nice job, when you have figured some of
the basics out.
I actually love editing multiple tracks project. :)
I am unsure on where accessibility can be fixed. I don't know for sure if
Voiceover could improve regarding program languages or controles... Or if it is
something in the source of Audacity that needs to be changed to get better
accessibility. Again, I am not a programmer and I can not afford a studio
package like Protools since 99 percent of my work is spoken audio and has
nothing to do with midi or music production.
As I stated earlier, I think I would have learnt a lot more if I started with
Audacity on Windows before I tried it on the Mac, since there is some areas
that works better with the screenreaders.
Best regards Thomas
Den 2. feb. 2017 kl. 12.32 skrev John Covici <covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
Thanks. Its a pretty peculiar system. Did you ever use protools?
Maybe I have to do that to get something decent. This seems very
counterintuitive.
I was able actually to set the time by clicking the right bracket,
hitting home and typing, although I get no speech feedback.
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 06:13:42 -0500,
Thomas Byskov Dalgaard wrote:
Hi Andrew and John!--
First of all: Sorry I didn't catch this discussion before.
I am a fulltime Mac user and have played a little with Audacity lately.
Andrew, you have certainly nailed some of the issues I had when discovering
Audacity. Looking bak I guess I should have started on Windows where
accessibility at the moment is far better than in the Mac version. I believe I
would have save myself for a few frustrations over accessibility issues.
Don't get me wrong: Audacity does some very very nice things regardless of
accessibility on the Mac. I actually wish I was a programmer so I could try to
help other Mac users out instead of just giving details on areas that don't
work at the moment.
Now, enough of my ramblings, *grin*
Go to time:
If you don't want to control-click you can press control-optionshift-m and from
here select the amount of time. I prefer the same as you, Andrew. :) You still
have to press the left bracket key twice to get into the dialogue.
Some notes about Selection:
You can press shift-F8 to hear a portion after your end of selection.
As I understand you can press the right bracket key after you've set the cursor
with shift-a, but you are then selecting from the cursor to the right bracket,
and that is different than other editors.
Playing with this actually learnt me something nice:
If we set the end of selection, all audio from the cursor is selected. That
means we can move the cursor without deselecting the time range.
So, find the end of the selection and press right bracket. I suppose you are
doing this while the audio is playing. So playback will not stop. If you press
the space bar now, you have a selection. If you hit the right or left arrow key
your selection becomes deselected again.
So how do we move the selection points?
We can do a few things.
One way could be to play from the cursor, and then pressing shift-A. Then the
cursor is moved and so is the selection. So if we delete we do not need to
specify the start of selection, since that is represented by the cursor.
You can also press shift left or right arrow to make changes. Shift left arrow
will move the start of selection to the left. Shift right arrow will move the
end of the selection to the right.
Shift command left arrow will move the end of the selection to the left.
Shift command and right arrow will move the start of selection to the right.
The last keys here took me a few minutes to get right. :)
I hope this could help you a little.
What ever you do, do not use versions later than 2.1-screenreader. Tracks are
not possible to navigate very easily, so you might spare yourself for some
frustrations by waiting a little before updating.
Hope this helps
Best regards Thomas
Den 2. feb. 2017 kl. 11.38 skrev John Covici <covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
A couple of points here -- you have described two different uses for
the arrow keys one is go back abit, and the other is getting to the
beginning or end of the selection while removing it which I can't
imagine ever doing. So when are these different functions of the
arrow keys available?
Also, I was able to play after the selection, but the only way to do
it was to go to the edit menu and go to the selection submenu, so I
would like to set up a keystroke for that.
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 05:29:55 -0500,
Andrew Downie wrote:
Normally, pressing left arrow should do what you want - just move--
back a little. The amount will depend on file length and zoom
level, but it shouldn't jump you back to the start unless fairly
close to it. Can Mac users replicate John's problem?
Regarding playing past end of selection, normally pressing left
arrow will clear the selection and leave you at the beginning of
what was the selection. Pressing right arrow will clear the
selection and leave you at what was the end of the selection. I
did find this morning on the Mac that those commands were not
working, so will check again tomorrow. But unless there is
something I have completely missed, you cannot play past the
selection while that selection remains. In programs such as
Total Recorder and, I think, Goldwave you can do that, but not in
Audacity. Someone correct me if I have missed a feature.
Andrew
On 2/02/2017 8:55 PM, John Covici wrote:
I did want to set the end of the selection. Now, I have one question,
if I am playing (using shift-a) and stop using the same, if I then hit
left arrow I wind up back at the beginning of the file when what I
want to do is move the cursor back a bit. Very non intuitive.
I did find a way to play past the end of the selection, its on the
menus, but there is no keystroke -- this is something I do a lot.
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 04:31:29 -0500,
Andrew Downie wrote:
Your mention of the right bracket troubles me a little
(smile). Your hope was to set a starting point and that is done
with the left bracket (the one to the right of the p). The right
bracket sets the end point of the selection. Those keys behave
differently when playing and stopped. When stopped, the dialog
allowing you to enter a start and end time respectively
appears. While on that, you do not have to set an end point
unless wanting to do something with that portion of audio such as
amplifying, adding an effect, deleting etc.
If you press left bracket when playing, that sets the start
point. Similarly, pressing the right bracket when playing sets
the end point. Playing will continue until you press spacebar to
stop it but next time you press spacebar to start playing that
will be from where you hit the left bracket. Clear as mud?
If you have made a selection by setting a start and end point,
only that part of the audio will play. Usually, pressing left or
right arrow will clear the selection, but that was not happening
for me this morning on the Mac.
The Mac I use also has a trackpad. Holding down the control key
and pressing the trackpad will produce a control-click.
If this does not compute, do you have a Skype account?
Andrew
On 2/02/2017 6:32 PM, John Covici wrote:
OK, I was able to press the right bracket and get a time. I did notThe audacity4blind web site is at
know about the right arrow key, but I get no speech while typing. I
then tried to play past the selection and discovered there is no
keystroke for that. I tried looking in the keyboard preferences, but
it is not obvious now to find anything in there using vo.
this is as far as I have gotten.
So, how do you do a control click on the Mac? Mine has no mouse but
the trackpad. I tried hitting the control key and pressing on the
trackpad, but nothing happened. I want to do this because this is
supposed to initiate a scrub.
Sorry for all the questions, but I am new to audacity.
On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 01:22:24 -0500,
Andrew Downie wrote:
Hi again John. After all my equivocating, here is the definitive
answer, at least as far as Audacity v2.1.0 on a Mac running OS10.
When I press left bracket ([) VoiceOver announces the current
position. Having entered a new time, pressing VO-right arrow
(not left as I said yesterday) reports my entry. It sounds like
you are not getting those responses. My copy of Audacity is
somewhat dated and others will have a better idea than I do as to
which more recent version will work.
If your version is at default settings, that may have an
effect. Because I am a pedant I set time format to hours,
minutes, seconds and milliseconds. To change time settings:
Press the trusty left bracket.
2. Hold down control key and click the mouse.
3. Arrow up/down until you find an option you like and press Enter.
I think I gave correct info yesterday as to entering time. If
set to hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds and you want to
go to five minutes 30 seconds and 125 milliseconds:
Having pressed left bracket:
Press Home
Enter 000530125. Pressing enter should put you at that point,
speech or no speech. But if you want to check where you are,
having no speech would be a real pain.
If no joy, check with more regular Mac users as to which recent
Audacity version works.
Andrew
In summary, if you get no speech when
On 1/02/2017 10:08 PM, John Covici wrote:
OK, thanks.The audacity4blind web site is at
On Wed, 01 Feb 2017 05:35:50 -0500,
Andrew Downie wrote:
No, you definitely do not have to interact with the text. My
dodgy memory is that VO-left arrow will report what you have
written, but will try to remember to check it out tomorrow.
Andrew
On 1/02/2017 7:50 PM, John Covici wrote:
I will try that and see what happens.The audacity4blind web site is at
Thanks for the hint. I wish vo would read as you type, but maybe this
will do. Do I have to interact with the text to do this?
On Wed, 01 Feb 2017 01:02:43 -0500,
Andrew Downie wrote:
One out of two is not good. I forgot to check the Mac today but
did find my earlier post on this issue. See if the following
helps John. I will try to refresh my brain on some finer points
tomorrow. Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from what I wrote late
last year:
I made a breakthrough today. Having pressed one of the brackets,
pressing Home fixes the issue I noted yesterday of not knowing
where the cursor had landed. The following example assumes you
are as fussy as me and have set to hours, minutes, seconds and
milliseconds, but adjust according to your setup.
Let's assume you want to set the cursor at 3 minutes, seven
seconds and 351 milliseconds.
1. Press left bracket ([)
2. Press Home (on the Macbook Air Function-shift-Command-left does the job)
3. Write 000307351 and press Enter
You will be placed back on the audio track. As David said,
VoiceOver commands can be used to read the value before you press
Enter. That becomes important if you want to make very small
adjustments, as you will need to know current settings before
making an adjustment.
Andrew
On 31/01/2017 9:18 PM, John Covici wrote:
Well, I did try that, but I could not get vo to read thingsThe audacity4blind web site is at
consistently and I could never be sure of what I was typing. If I
interacted with the text, I get nothing. Am I missing something?
On Tue, 31 Jan 2017 05:09:38 -0500,
Andrew Downie wrote:
I stoked up a Mac a few weeks ago when someone else was having a
similar issue. Unfortunately, I have deleted my pearls of
wisdom.
I will try to remember to check again tomorrow. Meanwhile,
exactly what you enter will depend on the time format you have
set. If I remember correctly, pressing Home is the first
step. Then, if you want to go to 5 minutes and 5 seconds enter
00:05:05.00 assuming you have set time to hours, minutes, seconds
and hundreds of seconds. I am trying, without success, to
remember how to set time format on the Mac. I do remember that
getting VoiceOver to read what you have entered requires a bit of
digital gymnastics.
Let me know if you make no progress.
Andrew
On 31/01/2017 8:02 PM, John Covici wrote:
However, I am on a Mac and could not get this to work.The audacity4blind web site is at
On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 22:04:43 -0500,
Liu Kai wrote:
on a windows system if you push the left bracket key while
playback is stopped, it brings up the time diologue where you can
type in a time to go to. and when you hit enter on it, it plays
from that time.
-----Original Message----- From: John Covici
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 10:54 PM
To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [audacity4blind] Re: how to go to a specific time
I want to enter the time numerically because I know about what time I
want and it may be a long file.
On Mon, 30 Jan 2017 18:30:39 -0500,
Liu Kai wrote:
use the space bar to stop play back, then hit the left bracket--
and it would bring it up.
life is good
-----Original Message----- From: John Covici
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 7:20 PM
To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [audacity4blind] how to go to a specific time
Hi. I am using audacity on my Macbook pro using voiceover and I would
like to know how to go to a specific time entering it numerically.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
--
Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is:
How do
you spend it?
John Covici
covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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