Popular Open-Source Audio Editor Audacity Adds Windows 10 Support, More Improvements (audacityteam.org)

Audacity, a popular open-source and cross-platform audio editor, has received a "maintenance" update that brings several improvements. Dubbed v2.1.3, the biggest new addition appears to be support for Windows 10 OS. For Mac users, Audacity now works in tandem with the Magic Mouse. "We now support Trackpad and Magic Mouse horizontal scroll without SHIFT key and Trackpad pinch and expand to zoom at the pointer," the release note says. We also have new "Scrub Ruler" and "Scrub Toolbar" scrubbing options in the application now. Read the full changelog here.

Comments

Bugfix

[Tablizer]

Improvements...Windows 10 is now supported (there should be no "Internal PortAudio Error" or failure to find any devices as long as the built-in audio devices are enabled).

That's not "improvements", that's a bug fix in my book.

Re:Bugfix

[Cley Faye]

It is. I don't know what they did (I'll check the changelog when I install it), but I've been using Audacity on W10 with no issues or workaround of any kind.

Re:Lemme guess

[reboot246]

You haven't been paying attention, have you? Nobody wants their serious work (work that makes money for them) interrupted by an operating system updating itself whenever it damn well pleases.

Re:Lemme guess

[ArchieBunker]

Yes I have. Windows 10 installs updates without asking, thrashes the drive for hours while doing so, slows any programs you are using to a crawl, and then breaks said program after rebooting while you were getting coffee.

Audacity is a Great Ugly Duckling

[BrendaEM]

I've used Audacity for years. It's a powerful, useful audio editor. The releases are stable. It's a great program.

Though, the UI is not in keeping with the quality of the rest of the program. I have written to the developers. The response I got back suggested that the developers are not really open for any kind of visual changes. In fact, the reskinning functionally was removed in later versions.

I would like a UI that looks more like Ardour. Though, if the developers don't like dark themed UI's, perhaps a slider could be added something like in Adobe Premier so the user can change the light/dark elements on the fly. Other work needs to be done, like modernizing the icons and making sure it is ready for 4K.

Additionally, thank you for Audacity. It is a wonderful program, worthy of being a showpiece in the open source community.

Re:Lemme guess

[BronsCon]

I'd say... most days since I started using it in 2015. I was able to say "every day" until it happened to me back in October on a Win 10 Home system. And again 3 days ago, on a Win 10 Pro system.

Re:Lemme guess

[BronsCon]

Theres a reason there is an 'active hours' setting.

I'm still trying to figure out what that reason is, as both times it happened to me, once on Win 10 Home, once on a different machine running Win 10 Pro, it not only rebooted during Active Hours, but as I was actively typing!

Active hours lets us know then you usually use this device. When a restart is necessary to finish installing an update, we won't automatically restart your device during active hours.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Note: We'll check to see if you're using this device before attempting to restart.

Okay, that makes sense; that must mean they'll only restart automatically if you are using the device.

Which aligns quite well with my experience; I've never come back to an automatically-rebooted-for-updates Windows 10 system, but I've sure had it reboot on me while I was sitting at it and actively typing. Like, mid-sentence. Twice. On two different systems running two different editions of Windows 10.