As we've discussed a few times, Audacity is our currently recommended open source audio editor. We've had it available portably for a while and recently began bundling it in the PortableApps.com Music Production Suite.
Currently, we bundle and recommend the 1.2.x stable branch of Audacity. There has been some debate over switching to the 1.3.x beta branch. Normally, this would be out of the question as we don't promote beta products as stable to end users. Unfortunately, in the world of Audacity, this is *MUCH* more complicated than with any other software we currently bundle.
Audacity 1.2.6 is the currently listed 'stable' release. Unfortunately, it is 2.5 years old and does not officially support either Windows Vista (issues) or Windows 7 (issues).
Audacity 1.3.11 is the current 'beta' release. It includes some provisional (though incomplete) support for Windows Vista and Windows 7, but also a number of bugs over the 1.2.6 release. It also includes additional localizations not included in the 1.2.6 release, though many are incomplete.
Audacity 2.0 is supposed to support Vista and 7 in the final version according to the website, but there has been some talk it may not. There is currently no ETA on when the 2.0 release may be.
So, we're left with two imperfect releases that each have different problems. Windows Vista and Windows 7 users make up 27% (and climbing fast) of Windows users online, so this is no small issue.
Now, we could switch to another audio editor instead, but there are issues with that as well as several are pre-1.0 and have other issues.
Additionally, there is the issue of how to store data for 1.3.x. We could use our existing launcher and move settings back and forth (as we do for 1.2.x). Or we can write a new one that will use the 1.3's native portable abilities... but this will mean all 1.2 settings are lost.
So, that's where we are. I've posted a quick poll to put it to a vote here:
https://portableapps.com/node/22682
All additional comments and suggestions are welcome.
Thanks,
John
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So I think since you're trying to appeal to all Windows users, you should probably promote both. You should probably promote them like this:
Obviously you'll need to list the caveats of each on the download page and make it prominent so users will see it when they try to download. Otherwise users will complain of problems in the forums.
That said, I think you should add another option for the poll with the option of supporting both.
The problem is that makes it more complicated than it should be, and is a bad user experience. Especially since these are portable apps... so users will be using them on multiple PCs, several of which are often outside their control. The chances that at least one is Vista or Win7 is pretty good. And, unlike other apps like Miranda IM where we keep both the ANSI and Unicode versions and automatically run the right one for Windows 9x vs modern Windows... we can't do that with Audacity because these are different versions with different settings and different menus, so the experience would change for the user based on which PC they're on.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
If you can't support both, then you need to support the version that works with most of the computers that a user will run into. Therefore, since Vista\Win7 only makes up 28% or all Windows machines then you have to go with Audacity 1.2.x.
This will work without issue 72% or the time while 1.3.x will only work without issue in 28% of the time.
It seems to me since you're trying for the best user experience then go with the one that will work most of the time (1.2.x). When Vista\Win7 becomes the majority of Windows machines than promote 1.3.x.
I'm a little confused. Audacity 1.2.6 portable exists and requires little or no attention since development is focusing on the 1.3 path. Why not offer the existing 1.2.6 portable and also start offering 1.3.x for those who require/wish the new functionality. Maybe you are making this more complicated than it really is.
I currently have both 1.2.6 Portable and 1.3.11 (beta) on my portable device and run which seems most appropriate.
Thanks,
Clair
You should go with 1.3.x, not only because it will support vista/7 better but because it has much more features and it is also more usable.
If you feel unsure whether its stable enough to bundle maybe make a version availble on the site for people to test? Before you switch it in the bundle?
True there are a few bugs (sadly), but not that many and the only serious ones that I saw are compatibility issues with vista/7 that are even worse in 1.2.6.
It should improve with the next beta release though.
Audacity is the best in the open source category from what I have seen or at least the most popular.
It will be nice if Audacity's developers will get over themself and start releasing stable releases but until that happens will have to deal with betas.
You should use the native portable version its silly not to, you can find a way to move the settings either manually or automaticlly thats not really a problem, the portable version is just a way not to need to move the settings to the computers %appdata% folder (it will also prevent clashes with multiple runs of Audacity especially with local versions). You will still need a launcher for platform integration (Data folder)
I personally have been using Audacity 1.3.x for quite some time at our church for audio manipulation there; I have never encountered issues with it, and indeed there have been a few minor glitches I've had with 1.2.x which have been fixed with 1.3.x. I vaguely recall having 1.2.x crash once but never 1.3.x. (All this is on a Windows 2000 machine, so the matter of Vista/7 support doesn't come into it.)
Also while I haven't looked precisely at how Audacity Portable stores its settings or how the new portability mode works, I would have thought it would have been something that could just be done in the install code with the custom PostInstall macro; is this not the case?
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I'll withhold my vote for now as I support a combination of the first two choices.
"Another open source audio editor" is no solution at all until we actually have one to compare to either Audacity build.
Audacity 1.2.6 might very well be fine for a lot of people. Random issues aside, I don't think the OS really matters all that much. 1.2.6 and 1.3.11 both work in XP and Win7. Audacity 1.3.11 has a few more features and is the preferred version for me.
Audacity 1.2.6 sends two messages to people "in the know" about Audacity. One, it says PortableApps.com's commitment to quality is so strong that they will not support software labeled as beta. Two, it says PortableApps.com is almost 3 years behind the times. Both assume a little but both are accurate. John's position is tough; he wants to maintain the first while avoiding the second (I imagine).
The easy solution is to do Audacity like Firefox. Keep Audacity 1.2.6 in the main suite, but Audacity 1.3.11 belongs in the music suite just for the ringtone factor alone. (I've explained this before, how easy it is to make a ringtone using Audacity 1.3.x, using a feature that is not present in Audacity 1.2.6. It can still be done in the older version, it's just not quite as easy.)
I dropped 1.2.x more than a year ago because it kept crashing on XP.
There is currently nothing Open Source for Windows that compares to the features and ease of use of Audacity 1.3.x.
Besides, I'm quite confident that they will resolve these issues and release a 2.0 soon, which will be much more compatible with the 1.3.x line than the 1.2.x.
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Despite the "beta" version label, I have not run into any showstopping bugs in the time I have used 1.3.x (over a year now), where 1.2.6 crashed quite frequently on me any time I ran it under Vista (never tried it in Windows 7, I had switched to 1.3.x by the time Windows 7 was released). Right now, the only issue I see with the 1.3.x branch is the lack of documentation, but for example look at GIMP. GIMP 2.6.x documentation didn't even exist until October of 2009, yet GIMPPortable 2.6.x has been the officially promoted version for much longer (granted, 2.5.x was never promoted, but as it has been said, it's more complicated than that with Audacity). 1.2.6 is no longer supported or developed. It has bugs, and they aren't going to be fixed in any future 1.2.x release. We won't see an update to 1.2.6 until 1.4.0, and who knows when that will happen? I would go with the currently active branch to receive not only the benefits of fixes and additions that have already been implemented, but incremental updates in the future. Yes, both 1.2.6 and 1.3.x have their own issues. The difference is that the issues in 1.3.x have a chance of being fixed. The ones in 1.2.6 won't.
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Ok, as most folks seem to think switching to the beta makes the most sense and, after looking through the support notes for the different versions, I agree... we're gonna switch wholesale to the 1.3.x branch and promote that as the official portable app going forward. I'll post the new version this week.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
This is great news. I've been using the in-built portable support over the 1.2.6 PAF, but it'll be nice to have an official PAF version of 1.3, especially with the new Music Suite
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