Bugzilla – Bug 991
[Scrub Phase I] Pause button not grayed out as inoperable when in scrub mode
Last modified: 2018-08-20 11:45:15 UTC
As reported earlier in Bug #969 - but opened here as a separate issue. The Pause button and its P shortcut intentionally do not interrupt scrubbing, but the Pause button is not grayed out as inoperable when in scrub mode. Note too that the Pause command entry in the Transport Menu is similarly not grayed-out as inoperable when in scrubbing mode (clicking on it in scrubbing mode does nothing though) (Note carefully that when in stasis mode, i.e. not playing or recording, the Pause button and its command in the transport Menu are not grayed out. This is intentional and deliberate as it is active in that state: pressing the Pause enables you to then press then Record, leaving Audacity in "armed for recording" state with monitoring on and where the next press of Pause starts recording immediately). I gave this a P3 rating as I feel it really needs to be Release Noted.
Added release note. Peter, please when you create a new P3 bug and say it needs a release note, do add a release note too, if you can.
Moved release note to 'Scrubbing' group (I hadn't realised there was already a group category for this).
James I updated the Release Note as the issue here is that, while the Pause button and the Pause entry in the Transport toolbar are both made inactive while scrubbing is active, they are not grayed out to show them as inoperable. Note that when going into scrub mode the Record button is properly grayed out as recording is deliberately inactive while scrubbing - and so are both of the Skip buttons. The Play button is changed to depressed playing state (although the GUI is a little confusing here as when you left click to initiate scrubbing mode and before you move the mouse to start the actual scrubbing the Play button changes to the "Play cut preview" button before changing back to the normal Play button when actual scrubbing starts. The Stop button is not grayed out (not the Stop command in the Transport menu) and is operational as intended so that it can be used to interrupt and stop the scrubbing, returning the user to normal play/record mode. It was a deliberate design decision to disable Pause while scrubbing as otherwise the user could get into paused scrubbing state, forget that is the case an then later be confused why things don't work. So there are two solutions to this bug: 1) gray out the Pause button/command when it is inactive/disabled during scrubbing, 2) change scrubbing so that Pause is available and active during scrubbing. I strongly favour the former, graying out, approach.
James (I assume unintentionally) demoted this to P4, so it did not receive an entry in Wiki Release Notes. I promoted it back to P3 and used Peter's release note on Wiki. If we allow Pause in scrubbing then the erratic way scrubbing behaves on resume after Pause would have to be fixed (bug 969).
(In reply to Gale Andrews from comment #4) Yes, P3 is correct. Thanks. [What has happened more than once is that I look at a P3 which has no release note, think "That doesn't need a release note" and demote it, then think better of it and add a release note, and forget to repromote it.]
https://github.com/audacity/audacity/commit/66dcabbb96ea454535f7a2a6857466eed0ed91ae
Testing on nightlies 19Apr16 -n W10 on on Mac El Capitan On both systems the Puse button and the Pause command in the Transport menu are both correctly grayed out. Tests OK
This is OK on Ubuntu 14.04 (Unity and Gnome) as far as stated. But what about the reverse case - engage Pause, then try to Scrub? Status Bar says that whatever scrub mode we are in is paused, which implies that you can use Pause to unpause it, but you can't do so except by stop and restart scrub. It is also inconsistent that Pause button is engaged and showing blue as if it is available, but greyed out in Transport Menu. So this will have to be addressed too. Discussion here http://audacity.238276.n2.nabble.com/Re-Bug-991-residual-trying-to-scrub-when-Pause-button-already-down-td7573824.html . For now I am reopening the bug with amended release note. It is more convenient to do so IMO when I've asked a question that wants an answer, and strictly, Pause button grayed out when in scrub mode has not been fully fixed.
>But what about the reverse case - engage Pause, then try to Scrub? But note that if Pause is pressed and then either Play or Quick-Play are selected the pause is overidden, unset and the playing commences - so I suggest that for consistency then Scrub should do likewise and similar;y override and unset the Pause.
I also noticed that status bar messages were wrong for scrubbing. "Scrubbing" changed back to "Playing." Try this now to fix that and the rest of this issue: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/commit/353107325151624a6dd965e9bf43bfcbe16e63f1
I was not satisfied with the last fix, this is better: https://github.com/audacity/audacity/commit/c97b4b12893143c7ae6ff8b3f14adae5a3c043aa I noticed that if you play, then start scrub (I used a keyboard shortcut), then normal play continued until the mouse moved, and that caused a jump in play position. But now, the scrub key during play will stop play and reposition the play head at once.
(In reply to Paul L from comment #11) This seems OK now on all platforms. Press Pause, Scrub, then Pause button is released and greyed out and you can move the pointer to scrub but cannot pause it. Note that the Status Bar messages are now incorrect, showing "Playing" when you start scrub without moving the pointer, from paused or otherwise.
