UX - Context menus when right-clicking

[jounih]

Right now, only created labels have context menus on right click.

I propose to add this behaviour to audio clips and empty regions as well (and possibly other areas where it makes sense).

This would be an addition, not removing any existing behaviour - the top menus and keyboard shortcuts would still also work just as they do now.

The benefits of context menus are many:

• Easier discovery of functionality, in the context you want to perform an action (ie. right click where you want to split a track, create a new track by right clicking on an empty area and selecting "Add track..." etc)
• Fast access to relevant actions without having to memorise keyboard shortcuts (although those still work fine)
• Expected behaviour from most other applications

Below are a couple of mockups (the exact content of the context menus should be decided after polling users what the most frequent/most useful actions would be).

In terms of technical implementation, Audacity already has (native) context menus on selected label clips - these could be built the same way.

Thoughts?

[SteveDaulton]

The question is: what behaviours / actions / commands to include in a right click menu.
Intuitively I'd expect to see the basic edit commands: Cut, Delete, Copy, Paste.
The danger is that the right click menu becomes overloaded with so many options that it becomes no more useful than simply using the main menus (with the possible exception of macOS due to it's dreadful main menu layout detached from the app).

[petersampsonaudacity]

See also this proposal in the Wiki: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Proposal_Smart_Help

[jounih]

We have had user requests in that past for more right-click context menus, Se this section of Wiki>Fearure Requests: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Feature_Requests#contextmenu

Thanks Peter this is very useful! These are a good set of options for a poll. How did you collect votes for these in the past?

[petersampsonaudacity]

Those votes were mostly collected from the Forum (with some from the now defunct feedback@ email channel)

[stmueller]

I'll point out that audacity has no/few context menus because of the lack of a second mouse buttons on macs. Yes this is still accessible with some keyboard-click or if people buy a real mouse, but it means you cannot count on the function being easily accessed for a large number of users (including windows users who never think to right-click), and so it must be supported in another way as well. Oftentimes this meant simplifying things, but also prevented cramming the entire menu into a context menu which might be daunting, and we've all seen context menus in open source products that make things worse, not better. That doesn't mean a context menu could not improve workflow, especially for advanced users. According to various tutorial videos I have seen, power users mostly just use keyboard shortcuts for the things that would go into this menu. A reasonable policy might be that anything in the context menu needs to be accessible elsewhere, and things should only be in a context menu if they specifically apply to the current selection or playback position (e.g., split track, cut,copy, duplicate paste, silence, effects).

[jounih]

All the native MacOS software I use has context menus - you can set it up on the Mac trackpad with two fingers (same on Magic mouse if you don't have a trackpad).

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh35853/mac

I think the trick is, as Steve said it, to make sure it's not crammed too full and has only the often used actions.

I'll reiterate that this should be an additional way to access often used actions - not a replacement. The actions would still work with the same keyboard shortcuts, and main menu items as today. Context menus just provide an additional, easily discoverable way to access quick actions, in context.