tutorial.txt

Tutorial: How to use the Timeliner audio browser.

1. Playback.

To hear the recording, hit the SPACEBAR.
If you hit the spacebar again, playback stops.
Try that now.

To start listening midway through the recording,
RIGHT-CLICK somewhere and then hit the spacebar.
Try that now.

To save you from too much clicking, you can also hold down the
RIGHT mouse button and DRAG the mouse left or right.
Try that now.

2. Zooming.

Timeliner can show you the whole recording, or (more usefully)
just a part of it.  To zoom in, to see a part in greater detail,
roll the mouse's SCROLL WHEEL forward.  To zoom out, roll it back.
Try that now.

3. Scrolling.

To scroll the display left or right, hold down the LEFT button
and DRAG the mouse left or right.

4. Keyboard.

If you use the mouse with your right hand, then your left hand can do all
these things at the same time on the keyboard, without looking away from
the screen.  Put your index finger on the D key.  The keys
      W
    A S D
act like four arrow keys.  W and S zoom in and out.
A and D scroll left and right.  Try those four keys now.

5. Two-handed use.

Zooming aims at where the mouse is.
For example, move the mouse near something interesting that's
near the left or right edge of the screen.
Then zoom in, to see detail around that interesting spot.
This way, you can "aim" with the mouse and zoom with the other hand.
Try that now.

Now play around for a few minutes, to get the feel of using all of these:
  - mouse
  - mouse scroll-wheel
  - "arrow" keys
Explore what feels most natural to you.

6. Interpreting what you see.

As you zoom and scroll, the bottom part of the display may look familiar.
The bright green "waveform" is like that of a traditional audio editor.

Below that, an abstract timeline shows tick-marks labeled in seconds,
minutes, or hours (s, m, h), or tens thereof (10s, 10m).

Most of the screen, though, shows rectangles that are less familiar
representations of audio.

One display is a kind of spectrogram.  Brightness indicates loudness,
with the rectangle's top indicating the highest sounds, and the bottom
indicating the lowest.

Other displays are more abstract.  What really matters is that if you
see something unusual there, then that may be a clue that you'd hear
something unusual there as well.