Your idea

The documentation at https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/customizing-audacity/installing-plugins should state that you can put plugins of several types (not only LADSPA but at least also VST3) into the directory %AppData%\audacity\Plug-ins on Windows.

Also, it seems like there are similar user-accessible directories on other OS that are not documented, see audacity/audacity#5746.

Problem to be solved

I didn’t know I could do that as a non-admin user. Neither did the Audacity help forum or the documentation.

Prior art

No response

Additional context

No response

@LWinterberg

This page has two references to Keyboard preferences - this was changed in the app to be Shortcuts preferences
https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/keyboard-shortcuts

This is 3.4.2

@LWinterberg

I can see nothing in the Support website telling the user about Preferences and their settings.

This should probably be an important part of the Customizing Audacity section:

The manual has a page on Preferences and a sub-page for each preference section:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/preferences.html

It may be worth adding on not on the Support page for real-time effects to the effect that they may (but only may) cause recording dropouts.
https://support.audacityteam.org/audio-editing/using-realtime-effects

This emerged after I have been working offline with a user who was experiencing dropouts - he tried all the suggestions in the current FAQ:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#skips
but to no avail.

Further experimentation led him to turning off all the real-time effects he has applied to all 11 tracks in a multi-track project. And lo and behold this cured the dropouts on recording the 12th track.

I have added a note to the FAQ in the 3.5.0 alpha manual:

For reasons unbeknownst to me, https://github.com/audacity/audacity-support/tree/main/todo has the installing audacity page, and only that. The actual todo folder is at https://github.com/audacity/audacity-support/tree/main/contributing/tutorials/todo, and the relevant page is at https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/downloading-and-installing-audacity

@LWinterberg

Note carefully that the Manage Macros page on the Support site has links to three very important pages in the old Audacity Manual for scripting commands i.e. all the commands that can be used in macros.

The pages are:

1. https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/scripting_reference.html
2. https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/extra_menu_scriptables_i.html
3. https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/extra_menu_scriptables_ii.html

This useful Manual page is also referenced:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/manage_presets.html

I raise this because if the manual is deprecated in a later release (possible or likely for Audacity 4.0) access to the valuable information on these pages would likely be lost.

Therefore it would seem important to transfer the content of those pages to the Support site.

Forum ELF Koz (Greg Kozikowski) wrote offline suggesting that it would be good if a link to the Manual could be added to the Audacity Forum.

This is effectively a regression as the old Forum did have such a useful link.

To which I would add: I suggest also adding a link to the Support GitBook site.

the following pages need updating for the new Timeline gear-wheel icon:

1. https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/audacity-editing
2. https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/sharing-audio-online
3. https://support.audacityteam.org/audio-editing/using-realtime-effects
4. https://support.audacityteam.org/audio-editing/loudness-normalization
5. https://support.audacityteam.org/music/enabling-music-view
6. https://support.audacityteam.org/music/making-audio-loops
7. https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/common-troubleshooting-steps
8. https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/solving-recording-problems/latency-compensation

These can probably most easily be achieved with a cut and paste of the new icon:

as I did for the many affected pages in the manual

I tested this on W10 with the latest master: audacity-win-3.4.0-alpha-20230609+0ec7ab2-x64-msvc2022

This works fine now:

1. The creation of a stereo track is blocked
   a) if one of the tracks has a Rate change from the TCP
   b) if one of the tracks is Resampled with Tracks > Resample
2. Projects created in earlier Audacity versions with stereo tracks with mismatched channels (created either way) cannot be opened on 3.4.0 alpha.

@LWinterberg BUT the error message that is shown has a help link to the GitBook Audacity Support errors page, but there is nothing on that page to advise users as to how they can correct this situation.

Links to this page: https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/error-codes

And note that the error message in the image above does not actually have an "error code" as such (but then several other errors dealt with on that page do not have errors codes either).

via @petersampsonaudacity in audacity/audacity#4737 (comment)

The Open Directory link found at the bottom of the page: https://plugins.audacityteam.org/ is broken. Specifically the link is to the page: http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Multimedia/Music_and_Audio/Software/Plug-ins/ which returns as a code 400 Bad Request.

The nyquist reference got ported over from the wiki, using a naive wikisyntax -> markdown conversion. These pages require manual adjustment of styles.

• https://plugins.audacityteam.org/nyquist-plugins/creating-your-own-nyquist-plugins/plugin-reference
• https://plugins.audacityteam.org/nyquist-plugins/creating-your-own-nyquist-plugins/headers-reference
• https://plugins.audacityteam.org/nyquist-plugins/creating-your-own-nyquist-plugins/widgets-reference
• https://plugins.audacityteam.org/nyquist-plugins/creating-your-own-nyquist-plugins/basics and subpages
• https://plugins.audacityteam.org/nyquist-plugins/creating-your-own-nyquist-plugins/tutorials and subpages

NB: Gitbook dislikes being used for editing massive tables in particular. You may want to edit this locally using VSCode with markdown extensions or another text editor instead. https://github.com/audacity/audacity-support/tree/plugins/nyquist-plugins/creating-your-own-nyquist-plugins
Gitbook Markdown is a superset of Github-flavored Markdown afaik, so anything that looks good in a local editor and in your repository will look good on the live page, too. You can see all available formatting options here: https://support.audacityteam.org/community/contributing/tutorials/gitbook-markdown-syntax

This work may be tedious, but all the information already exists. If the broken formatting leaves no clue as to what the original meaning could be like, refer to the original pages in the old wiki: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Category:Nyquist

currently I'm just handwaving "install homebrew and then ffmpeg", but this really needs some additional info, like:

• opening the terminal on mac
• installing xcode
• installing homebrew
• installing ffmpeg
• matching the architecture of Audacity (x64 audacity needs x64 ffmpeg, even on m1 macs; arm64 audacity needs arm64 ffmpeg)

We have two short pages for troubleshooting currently:

• https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/solving-recording-problems
• https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/solving-other-problems

However, between the institutional knowledge of the forum and, to some degree, the FAQ there is a lot more content to be added to these pages.

This issue isn't meant as being a gigantic task to find all knowledge there is - that's pretty much impossible anyway - but to encourage finding these bits of knowledge and adding them, one little section at a time.

@LWinterberg

Start Monitoring was changed to Enable Silent Monitoring in the Recording Meter toolbar.

Accordingly the following image needs updating.

Setting recording and playback levels

See: https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/recording-your-voice-and-microphone/setting-recording-levels-and-playback-levels

list of all wiki pages

The wiki contains a bunch of information, most of it outdated. As the pages all touch on separate subjects, separate things need to happen to some of them:

• the changelog can be ported 1:1 (see #16)
• Process pages (how what will be done or has been done) can be deprecated without replacement. This particularly applies to completed proposals, old bug lists and such
• Community contribution pages can be ported to the relevant section in audacity support
• Feature requests/proposals will be ported to the feature requests project if applicable. @LWinterberg
• Information for blind users should be ported to audacity support
• GSoC idea pages can be deprecated without replacement
• Developer/code specific stuff may be ran by Paul. If it's still relevant/useful, port to https://github.com/audacity/audacity/wiki, if not, deprecate without replacement.
• non-Audacity related tips & tricks may be incorporated into support articles if vaguely related. If not, they can be deprecated without replacement.
• Cleanup https://plugins.audacityteam.org/contributing/developing-your-own-plugins-and-scripts/creating-your-own-nyquist-plugins from wiki syntax and examples. Crosscheck with the corresponding wiki pages to see how it's supposed to look. #7 for more info
• remove the link to https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/User:Galeandrews from the credits @LWinterberg
• port and update https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audiobook_Mastering into the Audio Editing section
• port https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Recovering_crashes_manually for 2.4.2 users as a subpage to https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/recovering-corrupted-projects

mark pages you have visited with {{deprecated}} in the wiki source code. no longer necessary

https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/recording-your-voice-and-microphone/setting-recording-levels-and-playback-levels will get outdated by both the new icons and combined mixer bar.

It's a good feature, but we have some uses on a shared computer that it is more confusing than helpful for. I'd like a preferences option to remove it from the main toolbar. Perhaps you could still make it available in a dropdown menu, either in the export submenu or as its own menu item.

https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_Versions has changelogs for (almost) all past versions, and it's one of the last still-useful non-outdated resources that haven't been ported over yet. As it turns out, it's reasonably painless to do using Gitbook's "import" function from the right-hand sidebar (or 3-dot menu on smaller screens):

I started a branch here which you can contribute to: https://app.gitbook.com/o/-MhmG2mhIIHTtQPuHV_k/s/-MhmBVzGzh8SctWQ6jPR/~/changes/ajm1Za9MrwdVvU8EM1ZM/changelog

NB:

• The importer sometimes imports the table of contents. Gitbook already generates one, so that can be deleted.
• For releases between 2.1.3 and 3.0.4, the actual changelog is in the new features archive, rather than the release notes - the idea back then was that the release notes would be updated after the release with known bugs and workarounds and such. If you want to, you can import the release notes for those versions as a subpage to the changelog, but I don't see nearly as much value for that

Bug description

The audacity Support website in its Missing Features section has incorrect (out of date) information about the cut/copy/paste buttons:
https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/missing-features

It states there:

The Cut/Copy/Paste buttons have been removed in version 3.2.0. You can access the functionality in the following ways instead: ...

This was true for 3.2.0 (and 3.2.1 and 3.2.2) but in 3.2.3 they were reintroduced in the new, hidden by default, Cut/Copy/Paste toolbar. And for 3.2.4/3.3.0 the additional Delete button has been added.

Steps to reproduce

1. go to: https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/missing-features
2. read what it says about the Cut/Copy/Paste buttons
3. Observe: the information is out of date

Expected behavior

Updated information telling users about the Cut/Copy/Paste toolbar

Actual behavior

Audacity Version

other

Operating system

Windows 10 - but assume all OS

Additional context

None

I understand that you only test on Mac OS 12 and later, but this version should be marked as incompatible with Mac OS 10.14 and earlier (I don't know about 10.15 and 11).

The animated gifs which have been used in Audacity Support break a number of accessibility guidelines.
See, for example, https://www.bbc.co.uk/gel/features/how-to-make-accessible-animated-images
Note in particular that the issue with blinking, moving, scrolling stuff is Level A: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#pause-stop-hide
It may be easier just not to use them.

As a connected issue, if you export a page which includes an animated gif as a pdf, the image in the pdf is not animated. So if any information was only available in the animation, this will be lost in the pdf.

On the Audacity Plugins page, the following link referencing realtime effects is broken:

All plugins in the realtime effects section can be previewed in realtime in Audacity 3.2.
This means that you can change the effect settings while playing, and come back to your settings after doing many other things - without the need to undo anything.

there have been a few changes in the wiki - https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges (as a ZIP of HTML pages for future reference)

they're mostly about capitalization of global variables as a convention, see audacity/audacity#4438

In the description of major features for 3.5, it is stated that:
"Automatic tempo detection can be turned off via Preferences -> Import/Export."

This is not completely accurate. See the table on this page:
audacity/audacity#5570
If the pref is set to "do nothing" and the timeline is set to "beats and measures", then automatic tempo detection is used.

It can only be turned off if the pref is set to "do nothing" and the timeline is set to "minutes and seconds".

This page: https://support.audacityteam.org/troubleshooting/common-troubleshooting-steps
doesn't work at the moment.

• The steps it lists generally don't seem to work
• The steps listed are very specific to audio devices (and not common)
• The page is one of the most viewed and one of the lowest rated pages we have

It is unclear how to exactly salvage this page.

Following video tutorials is generally easier for users than converting written instructions into actions. As such, if you are somewhat comfortable following a script and recording videos, one of the best ways you can contribute to the support site is by just doing simple screen recordings and following the steps that are outlines in there already.

See https://support.audacityteam.org/community/contributing/tutorials/style-guide#video-tutorials for more information.

Audaclity views English text in Russian language selected. Get 100% Russian Text update to Audacity.

Bug description

The manual says: "Generally, Audacity imports files at the sample format (bit depth) specified at Default Sample Format in Audio Settings Preferences." But the actual behavior is different.

Using Audacity 3.3.3

Steps to reproduce

1. In Audacity set "Default Sample Format" to "24-bit" (under Edit -> Preferences -> Audio Settings).
2. Import a 24 bit wav file.

Expected behavior

What the manual says (Audacity should import the file using the specified default sample format, 24 bit in this case).

Actual behavior

File is imported with 32 bit depth.

Audacity Version

latest stable version (from audacityteam.org/download)

Operating system

Windows

Additional context

Also the table below the quoted statement in the docs contradicts the quoted statement.

We collect a range of plugins on https://plugins.audacityteam.org/, but don't necessarily have the time or knowledge to find and try all the good ones.

This is where you can help: If you use a free plugin from somewhere and like using it, add it to the site. Details on the format can be found here: https://plugins.audacityteam.org/contributing/adding-plugins-to-this-site

featuring

• common causes (64 vs 32 bit, failing activation)
• manually enabling them anyway
• reporting bugs - both for plugins which crash (but shouldn't), and for plugins which don't crash (but get auto-disabled)

Hi, I am trying to use the HQ-Tone tone generator but I keep getting this error:

error: In BUILD-HARMONIC, 1st argument (n) must be an integer, got 2, a FLONUM

This is what happens when I try to generate a saw or inverse saw waveform. If I try to generate a square wave, then it says "got 3" instead of "got 2".

This is on Audacity version 3.1.3.

• Using realtime effects
  • article
  • video
• Downloading plugins
  • article
  • video
• rendering effects to track/bouncing effects
  • article
  • video
• changing devices (audio setup) - mono/stereo, wasapi, desktop recording, etc.
  • article
  • video
• using audio.com

Logging bugs information on the Audacity website (Contact page) fails to mention raising an issue on GitHub - instead is still recommends that users use the Forum for this:
https://www.audacityteam.org/contact/

This leads to a situation where the Forum Elves find themselves frequently responding to bugs reported on the Forum by advising the user to log them on GitHub (where they will get better visibility and focus).

This issue was spawned by a recent Forum post:
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/bug-report-welcome-dialog-links-are-broken-in-swedish/80988

Proposal

I suggest that it would be an improvement to change the website so that GitHub>Issues is shown as the primary location for Bugs ad Feature Requests - leaving the Forum (and Discord) for support issues.

Flagging @LeoWattenberg

https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/installing-plugins