User:Billw58/Project Window Border Options

In all cases the focus border has been brightened from standard.

Votes:
 * Pink 1: Bill -1, Peter -1, Ed +1, Gale -0.5, James -1 Current -2.5
 * Pink 2: Bill -1, Peter -1, Ed +1, Gale +0.75, James -1 Current -1.25
 * Green 1: Bill -1, Peter 0, Ed +0.5, Gale +0.25, James -1 Current -1.25
 * Green 2: Bill -1, Peter 0, Ed +0.5, Gale +0.5, James -1 Current -1
 * Green 3: Bill 0 Peter +0.75, Gale +1 James +0.5 Current +2.25.
 * Green 3 with black numbers: Bill -1 Peter -1, Gale +0.25, James -1 Current -2.75
 * Orange 1: Bill +1, Peter +0.5, Ed -1, Gale -0.5, James +1 Current +1
 * Orange 2: Bill +1, Peter +1, Ed -1, Gale +0.5, James +1 Current +2.5
 * Orange 3 as now presented with border style Gale +0.5, Bill +1, James SV Current +1.5
 * for border style on track: Gale +1, Bill +1, James SV Current +2
 * for smaller numbers: Gale -0.5, Peter -1, James SV Current -1.5
 * Brown: Bill 0, Peter +0.5, Ed ?, Gale -0.5, James +1 Current +1

Gale:01Jun12: Thanks, Bill. I pasted in the current brown for comparison. All are an improvement to me in looking cheerier and distinguishing the track focus better; the oranges are least good at dealing with the track focus. Steve has not voted yet but I think we can discount Pink 1, Green 1 and Orange 1. Would Bill be appeased by a darker, less fluorescent green? And will the colour of the numbers make a difference? I could see black working better than the blue we have now, especially with a green.

Bill 01Jun12: Added Green 3, which I could live with.
 * Gale 02Jun12: I prefer Green 3 to Green 2, so downgraded my vote for Green 2. I would like to see Green 3 with black numbers, as I think that might push me to +1 on it (I'm not +1 on any of these yet). In many ways Orange 2 is still better, but focus border clash looks bad to me. Did we ever try a bolder grey or black for the border colour? A bright number colour could still cheer it up enough with a black/grey. Fine tuning shades of blue/green/red may never be convincing.
 * Bill 04Jun12:
 * I don't see the focus border "clash" with orange 2.
 * Gale I see it quite strongly with any colours that are similar but try to have a defined border (I am slightly colour blind). It might look better if it looked like an orange border as the toolbars, not an orange and black border.
 * Bill I deliberately left the black track border outside the coloured highlight so there'd be some definition of and separation from the focus highlight. All options were done this way. I've added Orange 3 with no black between the track highlight and the focus highlight. It also shows smaller numbers as requested by Ed.
 * Gale I think this will probably swing my vote to orange 3. This is much less painful to look at for me. It also removes the problem that the border to right of vertical scale looks brighter than the border inside the track focus. Can we please also do this for the bottom of the Timeline, then if most think this is better, do this also for green 3 so we can have a final comparison of those two.
 * Bill: New Orange 3 image with orange border covering the black line at the bottom of the timeline.
 * The other minor problem I see with all the images is that everything above the track focus looks "on top" of the rest because the track focus looks less wide. Would it not look better if we made the track focus to be the same width as the border above? We are already faking focus brightness. In real life there is almost no background to left/right of the track focus, but in this image there is. This change would make the focus distinction clearer too.
 * Bill: I don't quite follow what you're asking. "In real life" there is a 4 pixel grey "border" around or between all tracks, as well as a 1 pixel black drop shadow effect. The "real" focus highlight is 3 pixels wide and shades from bright yellow to yellow-grey. My "brightening" effect as to change it to 2 pixels wide bright yellow and not touch the 3rd pixel. So to my mind the track focus in these images is 2 pixels wide, the same as the highlight borders. Are you asking to move the track + focus border up two pixels so the yellow focus highlight touches the orange border of the timeline? Or are you asking that the track and focus highlight be moved 2 pixels left so the focus highlight lines up with the orange borders? I don't know if we want to engage in that kind of fakery. Brightening the focus highlight is one thing, changing the location and appearance of a track is another.
 * Gale: I would argue the extra black border was "fakery" and was responsible for making the images look dull and fuelling the demands for "neon" and black numbers. If we wanted the border, it should have been a much subtler grey. I would like to see the black border removed (or made more "subtle") in green 3 to make a "green 4" to compare with orange 3.
 * Bill: There is no "extra" black border added in photoshop. The 1 pixel black border around the track and the extra 1 pixel black drop shadow are already there. I put the section highlight borders inside the existing black borders. I agree it looks better with the black borders covered up. I think it's one thing to cover interface graphics with highlight borders and another to change their size or appearance. The brightening of the focus highlight is subtle and not likely to be noticed. Here is a 400% detail of the upper right of the track in the image without any additions. [[image:WindowDetail.png]]
 * Gale: Bill, I obviously don't know what you do in Photoshop, but the black "looks" to be "extra" or "un-naturally emphasized" when next to the section highlight. We agree it is better (I would say "much cleaner and brighter") if the highlight covers the black. So could we now do that for Green 3?
 * Because the track focus has no border, it appears less wide, so the suggestion was that the focus highlight be extended left so the focus highlight lines up with the border colour (or less gap than now).
 * Gale: I use Audacity maximised normally and had not noticed that when you resize the window down, the track no longer fills the horizontal space but leaves a piece of the background at the side. That's unfortunate when we are trying to make an attractive image that can't have a border round the track focus. But as I now agree Audacity has this behaviour in real life, I also agree that we have little choice but to live with it even if it "might" look better to extend the focus border.
 * I prefer the blue numbers as they are clearly not part of the interface.
 * Orange 2 graphic now updated to show the numbers.
 * Removed pink 1 and 2, green 1, and orange 1 since these are negative.
 * Added Green 3 with black numbers
 * Bill 06Jun12:
 * New Green 3 with track section highlight covering the black
 * Mew Orange 3 with Track Control Panel section highlight covering black line between vert scale and track
 * Removed options with negative votes - we appear to be down to Green 3 or Orange 3
 * I will be away and out of touch until June 11.


 * Gale 07Jun12: Looking at Green 3 and Orange 3 in page context I have gone to +1 for Green 3 and dropped to +0.5 for Orange 2, but I could easily live with Orange 2 with or without smaller numbers (though I prefer larger). I could also live with a slightly more neon green (but not much more) if Ed still feels really disappointed.


 * Bill06Jun12: OK, I haven't left yet! To my eye the orange stands out better, so shifting my votes in favour of orange 3 as presented.


 * James08Jun12: The 'SV' stands for Spoiled Vote. In Ireland some years ago we had a vote on the Lisbon treaty.  We voted 'NO'.  That was not the answer the government wanted, so they held another referendum for the Irish people, and rigged the circumstances, the timing and the radio and poster advertising to get the 'YES' answer that they wanted.  A spoiled vote indicates dissatisfaction with the voting process.  It's going on too long, and the tweaking is not worth my time.  Let's just get the damned thing up on the front page and get the benefit of all the work that has been put into it.
 * Peter 8Jun12 "Let's just get the damned thing up on the front page and get the benefit of all the work that has been put into it." +1 to this sentiment - were are drifting into "paralysis by analysis".
 * Gale 09Jun12: Removed Peter's OT comments about the FAQ's. I disagree with James's comments in so far that we have not been improving things. The current Green 3 or Orange 3 are IMO several orders of magnitude better than the brown we started with. I'd like to see Ed's and Steve's vote but we won't wait if they don't vote. As you are all aware we cannot release the new front page yet because it does not display correctly in webkit browsers and there are screen reader issues. I've given Bill a possible solution to that but he's away for a few days. So release date is not next year but as soon as Bill sorts out the other issues.
 * Bill 11June12:
 * Please see experiments and comments on User:Billw58/Prefs_Options regarding webkit and screen reader issues.
 * The current front page has the same problem and does not display properly in webkit browsers. This fault is not nearly as jarring though - simply an extra blank line at the bottom of the "Menu" cell.
 * At this point I will happily accept Green 3 or Orange 3

Green 3




 Audacity 2.0.1 alpha development Manual This online Manual is only for 2.0.1 alpha. This Manual does not relate to Audacity 1.2.5/1.2.6 or any previous 1.3 versions of Audacity.
 * It relates to the current 2.0.1 alpha development code.
 * Use Help > Manual (in web browser) in Audacity 2.0.0 to access the installed Manual for that version.
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 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)  -  most common questions are answered in the FAQ

Using Audacity





Quick Where and How

 * Getting Started - Recording, Importing, Editing, Exporting...
 * Finding the correct effect including generators and analyzers
 * More help - Search the Wiki, ask on the Forum

Understanding Audacity

 * Foundations
 * Digital Audio
 * What is an Audacity Project?
 * Audacity Setup and Configuration
 * Playing and Recording
 * Audio Tracks
 * The Waveform Display
 * Editing
 * Selecting Audio
 * Clips - separate audio regions within a track
 * Splitting and Joining Stereo Tracks
 * Sync-Lock Tracks
 * Zooming
 * Undo, Redo and History
 * Mixing Audio Tracks



Tutorials

 * Editing an Audio File - Import the file, edit and export it
 * Your First Recording - Connect and record microphone or guitar
 * Mixing Voice with Background Music - For podcasts
 * Recording Multi-track Overdubs - more complex recording
 * Copying tapes, LPs and other media to CD or computer
 * Recording streaming audio playing on the computer
 * Vocal Removal and Isolation
 * Making Ringtones - for your cellphone
 * Example Workflows - Some sample workflows

Help with Advanced Topics

 * Accessibility (Audacity for the visually impaired)
 * Audio CDs
 * Batch Processing
 * Crash Recovery
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 * Latency when recording
 * Recording Quality
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 * Simplifying Audacity



Reference 

 Guide to the Project Window

Hover over and click on the image map to learn more. Skip the image



More Details for the Project Window
  Additional menus on Mac: <ul> <li style="float:left"> Audacity <li style="float:left"> Window </ul> <li style="clear:both">Additional Track types: <ul> <li style="float:left"> Label Tracks <li style="float:left"> Time Tracks <li style="float:left"> Note Tracks </ul> <li style="clear:both">Details for importing and exporting: <ul> <li> LAME MP3 export and FFmpeg import/export libraries for more formats <li>On-Demand Loading of uncompressed files <li style="float:left">Importing <li style="float:left">Exporting <li style="float:left"> Metadata Editor </ul> <li style="clear:both"> How to arrange Toolbars </ul>

<div id="right_ref" style="width:47%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left">

Preferences - changing your settings
Preferences are at the bottom of the Edit menu (or in the Audacity menu on Mac). Many settings can be changed including keyboard shortcuts and the interface language. <div id="container_prefs" style="width:100%; margin-top:-4px; margin-bottom:-3px; padding-left:10px; border: 0px">

Preferences settings can be reset to default at any time.

<div id="ref_bottom" style="clear:both">

<h2 style="text-align:center; font-size:1.8em; margin:2px 0px; padding:6px; background:#041ca3; color:#ffffff">Index, Glossary and More

<div id="container_misc" style="width:100%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; border: 0px"> <div id="left_misc" style="width:50%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left">
 * Index
 * Glossary of Terms - digital audio terms and file formats
 * Credits

<div id="right_misc" style="width:45%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left"> <div id="misc_bottom" style="clear:both">
 * Audacity License
 * Information for Developers - join our developer community
 * Information for the Media - Audacity and free, open software

Orange 3

 * No black between orange border on track and focus highlight

<div id="top_section" style="min-width:800px; background:#FFFFFF">



<h2 style="text-align:center; font-size:1.9em; border-bottom:0;"> Audacity 2.0.1 alpha development Manual This online Manual is only for 2.0.1 alpha. This Manual does not relate to Audacity 1.2.5/1.2.6 or any previous 1.3 versions of Audacity.
 * It relates to the current 2.0.1 alpha development code.
 * Use Help > Manual (in web browser) in Audacity 2.0.0 to access the installed Manual for that version.
 * You can download and install the 2.0.0 Manual if the Manual is not installed.

<div id="enclose_toc" style="min-width:800px">
 * A few pages have translations to other languages. Click the country flags at the top of the page.
 * Otherwise, click here for help in other languages.
 * Translators are urgently required to translate this Manual to other languages. To get started on translating, please write to our feedback address for an account on this Wiki.

<div id="faq" style="text-align:center; margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 4px; padding-top:2px; padding-bottom:2px; background:#DFEAF9; border:3px solid #041ca3"> Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)  -  most common questions are answered in the FAQ

<h2 style="text-align:center; font-size:1.8em; margin:2px 0px; padding:6px; background:#041ca3; color:#ffffff">Using Audacity

<div id="container_using" style="width:100%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; border: 0px">

<div id="left_using" style="width:50%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left">

Quick Where and How

 * Getting Started - Recording, Importing, Editing, Exporting...
 * Finding the correct effect including generators and analyzers
 * More help - Search the Wiki, ask on the Forum

Understanding Audacity

 * Foundations
 * Digital Audio
 * What is an Audacity Project?
 * Audacity Setup and Configuration
 * Playing and Recording
 * Audio Tracks
 * The Waveform Display
 * Editing
 * Selecting Audio
 * Clips - separate audio regions within a track
 * Splitting and Joining Stereo Tracks
 * Sync-Lock Tracks
 * Zooming
 * Undo, Redo and History
 * Mixing Audio Tracks

<div id="right_using" style="width:45%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left">

Tutorials

 * Editing an Audio File - Import the file, edit and export it
 * Your First Recording - Connect and record microphone or guitar
 * Mixing Voice with Background Music - For podcasts
 * Recording Multi-track Overdubs - more complex recording
 * Copying tapes, LPs and other media to CD or computer
 * Recording streaming audio playing on the computer
 * Vocal Removal and Isolation
 * Making Ringtones - for your cellphone
 * Example Workflows - Some sample workflows

Help with Advanced Topics

 * Accessibility (Audacity for the visually impaired)
 * Audio CDs
 * Batch Processing
 * Crash Recovery
 * Customization
 * Latency when recording
 * Recording Quality
 * Scripting
 * Simplifying Audacity

<div id="bottom_using" style="clear:both">

<h2 style="text-align:center; font-size:1.8em; margin:2px 0px; padding:6px; background:#041ca3; color:#ffffff">Reference <div id="container_ref" style="width:100%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; border: 0px">

<div id="top_ref" style="width:98%; clear:both; text-align:center; background:#DFEAF9"> <h3 style="text-align:center">Guide to the Project Window

Hover over and click on the image map to learn more. Skip the image <div id="left_ref" style="width:50%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left">

More Details for the Project Window
<ul> <li> Additional menus on Mac: <ul> <li style="float:left"> Audacity <li style="float:left"> Window </ul> <li style="clear:both">Additional Track types: <ul> <li style="float:left"> Label Tracks <li style="float:left"> Time Tracks <li style="float:left"> Note Tracks </ul> <li style="clear:both">Details for importing and exporting: <ul> <li> LAME MP3 export and FFmpeg import/export libraries for more formats <li>On-Demand Loading of uncompressed files <li style="float:left">Importing <li style="float:left">Exporting <li style="float:left"> Metadata Editor </ul> <li style="clear:both"> How to arrange Toolbars </ul>

<div id="right_ref" style="width:47%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left">

Preferences - changing your settings
Preferences are at the bottom of the Edit menu (or in the Audacity menu on Mac). Many settings can be changed including keyboard shortcuts and the interface language. <div id="container_prefs" style="width:100%; margin-top:-4px; margin-bottom:-3px; padding-left:10px; border: 0px">

Preferences settings can be reset to default at any time.

<div id="ref_bottom" style="clear:both">

<h2 style="text-align:center; font-size:1.8em; margin:2px 0px; padding:6px; background:#041ca3; color:#ffffff">Index, Glossary and More

<div id="container_misc" style="width:100%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; border: 0px"> <div id="left_misc" style="width:50%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left">
 * Index
 * Glossary of Terms - digital audio terms and file formats
 * Credits

<div id="right_misc" style="width:45%; background:#DFEAF9; margin:0px; padding:6px; float:left"> <div id="misc_bottom" style="clear:both">
 * Audacity License
 * Information for Developers - join our developer community
 * Information for the Media - Audacity and free, open software