Transcribe! Help : Keyboard playback shortcuts


Transcribe! has many keyboard shortcuts relating to playback and to adjusting the current point or selection. Shortcuts which are equivalent to some menu or toolbar command are documented with the command in question. Here, we describe some additional shortcuts which do not correspond directly to any menu or toolbar command.

You can use Transcribe! very effectively without ever using any of the shortcuts described here, and in fact you should probably not bother with these until you are fairly familiar with Transcribe!. However we have had requests from users for convenient shortcuts for some often-repeated operations, so here they are.

Adjusting the current selection

Left Arrow Enlarge the selection at the left.
Right Arrow Reduce the selection at the left, unless there is none in which case move the current point.
Shift+Right Arrow Enlarge the selection at the right.
Shift+Left Arrow Reduce the selection at the right, unless there is none in which case move the current point.
[ , ] Move whole selection or current point to left or right.
Shift+[, Shift+] Move whole selection or current point to previous or next marker.
Ctrl+[, Ctrl+] Move whole selection or current point to previous or next measure or section marker.
Alt+[, Alt+] Move whole selection or current point to previous or next section marker.
E Set the current point to the currently playing or paused point (no effect if not playing or paused), then scroll the current point or selection into view.
D Select from the current point to the currently playing or paused point (no effect if not playing or paused). For a weird effect, try holding this key down while playback is looping.
1,2,3 Set the current point to the left, middle or right of the window. This can cause a forwards playback jump if the current point is now to the right of where you were playing.
J,K,L These create a small (1, 2 or 3 tenths of a second respectively) selection, centred on the currently playing point. This is intended to allow instant looping of a single note (if you have loop mode switched on).
U,I These cancel any existing selection, placing the current point at either the left or the right edge (respectively) of where the selection was.

Adjusting the scale of the waveform profile display

Ctrl+Right Arrow Enlarge the horizontal scale (stretch the profile out).
Ctrl+Left Arrow Reduce the horizontal scale (squeeze the profile up).
Ctrl+Up Arrow Enlarge the vertical scale.
Ctrl+Down Arrow Reduce the vertical scale.

Scrolling the waveform profile display without changing the current point or selection

Up/Down Arrow Line-scroll (like buttoning the arrows on the scroll bar).
Up/Down Page Page-scroll (like buttoning the scroll bar to the right or left of the thumb).
Home/End Go to the beginning or end of the piece.
Q Scroll the current point or selection into view.
W Scroll the currently playing or paused point into view (no effect if not playing or paused). This is irrelevant if scroll mode is on.

Playback control

'Z' when pressed : Start playback as if <spacebar> was pressed. Play only as long as the key is held down.
When released : pause playback.

';' (or key to right of 'L') when pressed : if paused then resume playback. If playing already then continue playing. If stopped then start playback as if <spacebar> was pressed. Play only as long as the key is held down.
When released : pause playback.

The effect of this is that this key can be used to play back progressively, resuming playback each time the key is pressed at the point where playback paused when the key was last released.

Function Keys

The function keys can be programmed to start playback in various ways.

For each of them, you press Shift+Function Key to bring up a dialog enabling you to program the key, or you press the Function Key on its own to initiate playback accordingly. You have to have an active transcription with a sound file loaded before you can program any function keys.

All the playback function keys can be programmed but you should bear in mind that F1 to F4 are global which means whatever you program them to do, they will do the same whatever transcription you are working on. This means you cannot program them to play from a specified point in the transcription you are working on, as this might well be meaningless when you switch to another transcription.

From F5 to F15 the function keys are transcription-wide which means that whatever you program them to do, will be saved and restored with the transcription you are working on. This means that you can program them to play from a specified point in the transcription you are working on, and it also means that they can do different things in each transcription you work on.

The "Program Function Key Playback" dialog offers the following options :

And for F5 to F15 only you get the "Current Point or Selection" box which allows you to program the function key to take you to a particular place in the piece :

Here are the defaults for the playback function keys :

F1 Normal playback.
F2 Half speed.
F3 Up octave at normal speed.
F4 Quarter speed.
F5 - F15 Normal playback from start of piece.

 

Return to Contents page