Talk:FAQ

= Examples of ordered lists with a dual number =


 * 1) Why can't I use the effects or other menu items?
 * 2) Why can't I select less than one second or click between whole seconds?


 * 1) Why don't you remove this snap to box then?
 * 2) Why can't I use the effects when paused?


 * 1) Editing troubleshooting
 * 2) Why can't I use the effects or other menu items?
 * 3) Why can't I select less than one second or click between whole seconds?
 * 4) Editing how to
 * 5) How do I cut a selection?
 * 6) How do I paste a selection?

=FAQ update Plan - structure= After looking at the existing FAQs in some detail I note that there are very few really short ones and accordingly I'm coming round to supporting James' idea of one FAQ per page. (James says "That works better for internet searches than all FAQ questions on one page.")

On the subsection pages I would retain the link to the actual page with a brief one-liner description (to encourage click-through).

A paradigm for this is my (as yet unpublished) FAQ on "Error while opening sound device". I would propose placing just the first three sentences ( above the"General" title) with a link on the relevant FAQ subsection page and the publishing the full article as a page of its own, linked to from the FAQ subsection page. Long articles this just cannot really be countenanced on the FAQ subsection pages as Gale has opined before


 * Gale: 14Apr12: I like the FAQ section pages containing the text of all the FAQ's so as to encourage reading of more of them. But in order to handhold, some of the FAQ's must include steps which makes them long. We know there are at least ten (?) FAQ's that could usefully be added, so this "may" make some section pages too long if they include the text. If we have one FAQ per page, I think the main FAQ page should possibly only contain section links, especially the way I see it going with expanding numbers of FAQ's. Comments?
 * Peter 16Apr12: I take your point about the expanding numbers of FAQs - so I agree that the main FAQ page should contain only section links, perhaps with having short explanatory text. It would be good if the main FAQ page could fit without scrolling.  There are quite a lot of longish FAQs so I am increasingly in favour of the one per page approach.
 * Peter 23Apr12: Well, after a long day adding new FAQs from the "Proposed FAQs" and the "OLD FAQs" one thing I will tell you is that the current structure is extremely unwieldy. The manual page numbering in the main FAQ page is a royal pain and extremely hard to manage.  I for one would not want to be changing the order of appearance in the list or be deleting items from mid-list.  This makes me even more strongly in favour of moving to one page per FAQ with a summary page per section with links - this should make re-arrangements/deletions easier to accomplish.
 * Gale via email 4May12: My "vote" on one FAQ per page is about +0.25. Don't really want to do it, but wouldn't block it.
 * One FAQ per page and one FAQ section per page both have pluses and minuses. I wanted the Manual FAQ one page per section in the hope that it encouraged readership. It is way too much RSI if you have to do 24 clicks to read 12 FAQ's. Some people did complain about that on the main site.
 * One page for a two-line FAQ does look ridiculous but I don't see you can mix the paradigms if we are concerned about search engines being unable to produce an anchor link in a result. I quite like the solution I've seen where the FAQ's are one FAQ section per page, but with a link to a duplicate of that FAQ on a single page for benefit of search engines. If we did that, we wouldn't as far as I can see need to include the single pages in the bundled Manual, but it would be kind of messy as I guess the single page would be in the alpha Manual (which we don't want to link to).
 * Also relevant here - do we want to reduce the impact of page length of inline FAQ's by just having the question visible, then click to expand the answer? It must be possible as I have seen it on some Wikis, but I never yet found good enough documentation to get it working. I don't like it much and am unclear about VI implications, but I think it would encourage readership.
 * Given there are TOC's on the current FAQ section pages, IMO a search result not going to the anchored FAQ isn't that awful. The current "error FAQ's" would be much better grouped on one page IMO. There are not going to be more than four or five of them.


 * Peter 8May12: Ok, in the absence of overwhelming demand for "one-per-page"   I'll go ahead and work in the new ones as in-line FAQs. and I'll look to find some time to bring FAQ>Errors into in-line conformity.
 * James via email 4May12: A possible somewhat messy solution is to use the template transclusion mechanism so that we have one FAQ per page, but can also have section pages that transclude multiple FAQs - with hardly any extra work (and especially little to no extra maintenance work). I don't think it's necessary, but mention it as a possible technical solution.  I'm probably -0.25 on it as a solution.

=Archive material=

Redundant editornote (on FAQ>wrong language) moved to talk page
I believe that the material in this editornote is redundant now - accordingly I have archived it to the talk page. If oteh editors (particularly Gale) agree, then we can delete it.

That leaves the "Editing" section short but we could add to it (TBC) "Why do my longer projects always crash but not the short ones?". 
 * When I install Audacity the language is in Arabic (or whatever) - how do I change it back to English?
 * To change the language
 * use: Edit>Preferences - Edit is the second command in from top left, then Preferences is the bottom selection in the drop-down list.
 * Then you need the Interface tab, which is the fifth item in the list
 * In the dialog box there should be three wide drop-down selector boxes. The middle one enables you to select the language – select English
 * And then click the OK button – which should be the left-most button at the bottom right.
 * Gale: But we already have . And the 1.2 scenario of knocking the First Run dialog onto Chinese won't happen in 1.3 because that dialog has gone.
 * Peter 19Oct11: Ah yes, so we do. The reason I didn't spot it before was that I was looking in FAQ:Installation and Plug-Ins, as I regard it as an installation issue - whereas it currently lives in FAQ:About Audacity.  Can I move it to the installation issues section please?  This would also have the advantage of balancing out the two sections somewhat.
 * Gale: I understand the user logic of looking for this in "installation" but I don't think we should encourage the misapprehension this is to do with "Installation". Also users who decide later they want to change the language won't look in "Installation". I agree that "About Audacity" is less than ideal. How about a new "Interface" section? As well as the language FAQ we could move into it:
 * 5.1.1 Why can't I use the effects or other menu items?
 * 5.1.2 Why can't I select less than one second or click between whole seconds?
 * (TBC) Why does Audacity hang when I launch it?
 * Peter 23Oct11: The immediate reaction of a lot of posters who unwittingly get the foreign language interface with Audacity is to straight away try re-installing, and they usually do that even before they post a query on the forum. That's one of the reasons why I tend to associate it in my mind with installation issues. I wouldn't really want to move 5.1.1 and 5.1.2 out of editing - nor do I really see the real need for a new Interface category.
 * Gale 26Oct11: These are the 1.3/2.0 FAQs, not 1.2. So there will not be lots of first-time users of Audacity who get a "foreign language interface" in 2.0 because 2.0 has no first run dialog; Audacity simply uses the language the OS is running in. Even if 2.0 had this first run dialog, by the time the user saw that dialog they have already installed Audacity; the user's mistake is that they think the language choice in the Windows Audacity installer selects the Audacity language. It doesn't, as explained in the FAQ. We could rename section 2 of the FAQ "Installation, Configuration and Plug-ins" which is then suitable for the language FAQ and also lets us add a FAQ there about audacity.cfg if we want. But it would be wrong IMO to put the language FAQ in an "Installation and Plug-ins" section.

Redundant editornote moved to talk page
Peter 19Oct11: I propose that we should change the "FAQ" menu item in the navigation side bar to "Frequently Asked Questions". If we do make the proposed change, should we also retitle this page to "Frequently Asked Questions", dropping the trailing "( FAQ)"?
 * Upsides:
 * 1) Clarity of purpose
 * 2) The acronym is somewhat geeky and may not be well understood by many of our novices
 * 3) It aligns more with this actual page title: "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)"
 * Downsides:
 * 1) The proposed "Frequently Asked Questions" would overflow/wrap onto two lines in the nav. sidebar
 * Gale 22Oct11: Well I tried widening the sidebar and having "Frequently Asked Questions" as the link, but the wrap sets in as soon as you zoom (or visit the FAQ, which boldens the text). The wrap does not set in with zoom on my test site with the same code, so I figure the difference is that on the Manual Wiki we have enabled Wikitext in the Sidebar. This gives more flexibility but more importantly was the way to hide the "For Editors" box from logged out users. Of course there "may" be some other reason but this is the problem with trying to do this stuff with Wikis. Looking at it on my site, I don't really like it, maybe it's just too long with the bullet points, but I think it *would* look good without the bullet points. It should not be too hard to lose the bullets, but that has implications for the "Reference" section in the Sidebar here. Or, go for the symbol idea (which we use on the Forum), and of course show the same symbol in the TOC.
 * Peter 23Oct11: Thanks for trying Gale, but having seen how much it widens the nav menu bar I would not want to lose real estate for the meat of the Wiiki text (especially as the menu remains at the top of the page as you scroll down - some site have nav bars that move down & up in line with your scrolling so thay are always on display. Nor would I would want to lose the bullet points.  So for me it is either word-wrap or sticking with FAQ )or the symbol idea you suggest, but I'd rather stick with FAQ in that case.  Actually, I've always preferred sites that list the plural FAQs rather than just FAQ - as that can be read and vocalized as "facts" which carries some resonance I think.
 * Gale: 24Oct11: Wrap is out I think because James has previously expressed strong opposition to it on the main Wiki. I am not at all wedded to bullet points in the navbar, you could differentiate with lines or spaces and it would look much more "modern". Of course you could argue you should go the whole way with a different skin. "Frequently Asked Questions" would look fine in the navbar on the main site I think. Unfortunately the hover text for the FAQ link here says "FAQ" (the URL name of the page) and I don't currently know a Wiki way to display arbitrary hover text for a link or image link. Moving the page to "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" isn't an option. I don't like "FAQs" much myself and doubt it helps the subject problem a great deal. Doesn't leave us with much choice than the symbol if no-one wants to lose the navbar bullets.


 * Gale 26Dec11: Two variants with no bullet for first order li. Frequently Asked Questions wraps when on the page as here but not on Talk page (all other pages). Do we want to get rid of some/all bullets anyway, now we got rid of them in FAQ page?  If we don't want to write out "Frequently Asked Questions" then I quite like having a query icon. We could show it in the TOC too?

Navigation
 * Front Page
 * Tutorials
 * Using Audacity
 * Reference:
 * &rarr; Menu Bar
 * &rarr; Toolbars
 * &rarr; Preferences
 * Frequently Asked Questions
 * Glossary
 * Index

Navigation
 * Front Page
 * Tutorials
 * Using Audacity
 * Reference:
 * Menu Bar
 * Toolbars
 * Preferences
 * Frequently Asked Questions
 * Glossary
 * Index

More on Frequently Asked Questions written in full in sidebar
see also editornote in article for how it looks when ON the page (wraps) below is how it looks when NOT on the page (two variants) Navigation
 * Front Page
 * Tutorials
 * Using Audacity
 * Reference:
 * &rarr; Menu Bar
 * &rarr; Toolbars
 * &rarr; Preferences
 * Frequently Asked Questions
 * Glossary
 * Index

Navigation
 * Front Page
 * Tutorials
 * Using Audacity
 * Reference:
 * Project Window
 * Menu Bar
 * Toolbars
 * Preferences
 * Frequently Asked Questions
 * Glossary
 * Index

More on the Role of the SF FAQ after 2.0
See below for an earlier discussion from 2010. This discussion is transferred from a recent email thread amongst the core manual team.

Gale wrote 20Dec11:

>Another baton not picked up is translations for the FAQ's moved into the >Manual. We can't go into 2.0 with Manual FAQ competing with ancient >FAQ's on: http://web.audacityteam.org/help/faq. >I see this as P2.

And Gale subsequently wrote 20Dec11:

>The SF FAQ IMO should after 2.0 just be links to the (currently five) >FAQ sections in the Manual. Vaughan sees a problem with that in >that the current translations of the (mostly outdated) SF FAQ's >would be lost. It's less of a problem than he thinks, I feel, because >only about six languages actually have near-complete web >translations. > >So I see the "solution" as copying the translations into the Manual, >where the content still approximately resembles that of the Manual >FAQ's. Then we ask translators to address the Manual FAQ's like >they would if they were on SF.

'''Peter responded 21Dec11: I thought we all (me, Gale & James) agreed nearly two years ago now that the manual was to be *the* place for FAQs rather than the SF site. The discussion back then was that once 1.4/2.0 was released we (Gale, James?) would thin out ot the SF to a bare minimum. On the Talk page for the manual's FAQ (i.e. this page) James gave as a primary reason our easier ability to update the manual wiki rather than the cumbersome processes for updating the SF site (to which few of us have editorial access) and I fully support and endorse this reasoning.

Now I accept the responsibility of not picking up the baton 2-3 years ago of not moving the translations when I moved the original SF FAQ entries to the manual. I tried and failed (Gale gave me instructions) - my tries screwed up the manual so badly I abandoned the task.

The problem now is that since I moved those FAQs they have been maintained an much updated over that period that they have been in the manual. So doubt that there is much value at all in blindly copying the translations over from SF site - they are likely to be very out of date. I also recall that when moving the native English FAQs a large amount of the expended effort went into fixing and testing the links (a lot of them).

So much better, in my view, would be to abandon the SF translations and ask the translators to take responsibility for translating the current FAQ material in the manual as then that will be up to date.

Role of the SF FAQ after 2.0
Gale: Is this meant to mirror the website FAQ or to be different? Shouldn't the two match at the point of release of 1.4.0?


 * James: I think this should be the 'master copy' for the FAQ. I'd rather we had a FAQ on a wiki where we can quickly update and improve than on a website where there's red tape to the slightest change. I'd be fine with the Sourceforge FAQ disappearing once we have its contents here. If we want to keep the sourceforge FAQ, then some way to publish this one over there, to save us from duplicated work.


 * Peter 7Mar10: For a while now the FAQ in the manual has had exactly the same content as that on the Sourceforge site.  We should not be maintaining two copies of exactly the same content.  So I support James' suggestion that the Sourceforge FAQ should be removed.

Gale: 7Mar10: I was always supportive of moving when we released 1.4/2.0. Until then, the Manual FAQ needs updating for 2.0 (something I've said I would do), while the SF FAQ still needs to refer to both Beta and non-Beta. In practice, the SF FAQ has always ignored the Beta version, which I'm slowly changing. For this reason, the Manual FAQ is not the same as the SF FAQ the last time Peter synchronized it (see the VST FAQs for example).  Another short-term factor against moving the SF FAQs is that they lose their translations. I think Peter was going to copy the translations from SF FAQ to Manual FAQ (I gave some instructions) but this hasn't happened. We won't move to Manual FAQ until that happens. Meantime for English FAQs I think we could either  continue to slowly adjust the FAQs in both places so they match, or slowly add Beta information to the SF FAQs and modify the Manual FAQs so they reflect Beta only. </ol></ul> I think 2) is better, and means we don't have to keep comparing the two FAQs. If the translation does not match the Manual content, we can note that. We just have to stress the importance of translating the Manual as well as the site. Also the link to FAQs on the Wiki front page should perhaps be diverted back to SF, or include both FAQs, given there is no immediate prospect of 2.0.</ul>  Currently only myself and occasionally Richard work on the SF site (it's a clumsy job doing PHP edits and then pushing the changes at the command-line, both these things due to having translations).</ul>

Images in the Manual FAQ?
James: I think the FAQ should not have images in it. Longer answers (with images) when they are needed should be linked to as 'tutorial pages'. This way the FAQ is in the tradition of usenet FAQs where people can capture it as a plain text file.


 * Gale: I am in two minds about images. The Wiki does give us some opportunity to include them in the FAQ. I agree the FAQs must be concise, but once again some users have felt they are (were) not detailed enough and sometimes images can actually save text. I would not want to rule images out at the moment. If you look at a Wiki page with images, say: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mixing_stereo_tracks_to_mono_in_your_Project


 * and just use Windows Clipboard and Notepad, it captures nicely with the image Alt text replacing the images. And many users will have more sophisticated clipboards/text programs than those.

One page for Manual FAQ or several?
Gale: The SF FAQ has separate pages for every FAQ; at the moment the Manual FAQ has all the FAQs on one page.


 * Is it better to have at least separate pages for each section of the FAQ (Recording, Editing and so on), then instead of a contents table, the main FAQ page just has grouped links to anchors on each of the FAQ section pages?
 * Or if we keep the FAQ on one page, the Table of Contents is huge. I'm inclined to have headings for only the FAQ sections, then the Contents only needs seven or eight entries.

I think either of the above encourages reading of multiple FAQs. The SF idea does lead to people reading some FAQs but not others, demonstrated repeatedly on -help list.


 * Peter: I support the former:  a page per section and a contents list of sections on the main FAQ page


 * Peter: In a one page FAQ, or even in a one page per section FAQ, many of the links to other FAQ articles are now somewhat ridiculous as they now link to a piece of text which is either immediately above or immediately below the current article.

Gale, 06May08, 20:01 UTC: Links immediately below is a bit of a problem. It might be better to say " See also the next FAQ below "Why can't I play MIDI files" ". Links above should remain as links, because the user may go to the FAQ that has the link as an anchor, and then can't see the question above, however near it is. For now, leave the internal links as you've done them (thanks for that). It's something we can decide when the structure including all the questions  and their order is finalised.

Customised Bullet Points for FAQ navigation
Gale: 27 Jan 11: Rather than

> Forward To: FAQ:Editing

< Back to: FAQ:Recording

|< Index of Frequently Asked Questions 

wouldn't it be nicer to have the >   <     |<    as custom bullet images to left of the link?

To make the link e.g.  Forward to FAQ:Editing</li></ul>

I can arrange this if we think it's a good idea.