Navigating Effects

Here are a few tips to make it easier to access the effect you want from the Effect menu.

Accessing Effects without the Mouse

Using the keyboard to access effects repeatedly can be much more comfortable than using a mouse.

• Pressing ALT then C (on Linux you may have to hold down the ALT) opens the Effect menu and takes you to the top of the list without having to use a mouse.

• You can scroll up and down the menu one item at a time with the up and down arrow keys. If you are already at the top of the menu, the up arrow will skip to the bottom item of the menu.

• On Linux only, effects underneath the divider are grouped as "Plugins 1 - 15", "Plugins 16 - 30" and so on; use right arrow to move into the list of plug-ins in the group.

• Press Enter on the keyboard to open the highlighted effect.

• Once in the Effect, you can use Tab to navigate forwards through the text boxes, sliders and buttons. Hold SHIFT while pressing Tab to skip backwards. You can use the arrow keys, Home, End. Page Up or Page Down to control a slider.
  Note: On Linux you must click in a box or slider before you can navigate with the keyboard. On Mac, Home and End do not work with sliders.

• Once you have used an effect, you can use "Repeat Last Effect" at the top of the menu to repeat that effect with those last used parameters. This also has a shortcut CTRL + R (or COMMAND + R on a Mac). You can change this shortcut to something else on the Keyboard tab of Preferences.

Faster navigation

• On Windows, at any stage when the menu is open you can navigate to the next effect starting with a particular letter by typing that letter. For example, from the top of the menu:
  • press H then H to reach "High Pass Filter" (underneath the divider, because the effect is in Audacity's Plug-Ins folder)
  • press C then C to reach "Change Speed".

• On Linux, seeking effects by letter does not work but you can use Page Up or Page Down instead (which do not work on Windows) to skip items, followed by up or down arrow.

Accessing Effects with Shortcuts

Apart from the "Repeat Last Effect", Audacity does not yet allow use of shortcuts to access frequently or recently used effects. External macro programs provide a solution.

Suggested Windows programs:

• AutoHotKey (open source)
• PowerPro (freeware)
• Robotask (free and paid for versions)

OS X:

• QuickKeys (paid for)
• Keyboard Maestro (paid for)
• AppleScript (requires detailed UI knowledge, try UIBrowser Assistant to overcome this)

Working examples in AutoHotKey (contributed by Rabbi-m):

Windows key + u = Fade In:

#u::Send !{c}f{Enter}

Windows key + y = Fade Out:

#y::Send !{c}ff{Enter}