Nomenclature for default Clip names could be improved as "Audio Clip"

[petersampsonaudacity]

I have been testing Vitaly's latest alpha build for 3.1.0 with Clip names added - Audacity_Windows_64bit_1167467960_f53c93b

The default name for a Clip is "Audio Track" - this is misleading and could be more informative:
a) the clip is not a track - especially clear when you have multiple clips in a track
b) it misses the UX/GUI opportunity to identify the clip as a "Clip"

My recommendation is that the default clip name should be "Audio Clip"

This then clearly introduces the user to the concept of clips and naming of clips.

[SteveDaulton]

I don't "get" what these clip names are for.

When I create (record or generate) a new clip in an audio track, it gets the name of the audio track + one or more numbers. This seems like it could potentially be useful.

If I copy the clip into a new track, the clip name remains the same - it doesn't get the new track name.
I can see how it might be useful for the clip names to be "permanent", allowing us to track where the clips came from - except that the names are not really permanent. If I mix and render a track, the clip names are lost as the rendered track now has one clip with the track name.

And then it gets more bizarre:
If I have a "Guitar" track and a "Vocal" track:

Copy the highlighted section from the Guitar track and paste it into the Vocal track:

As expected, the "Guitar" clip is merged into the "Vocal" clip.
But what if I paste at the start of the Vocal clip?

Why is the name of the clip different? Is it intuitive? Is it useful?

[petersampsonaudacity]

I still think the default clip name would be much better and much clearer in intent/purpose it it were

Audio Clip rather than Audio Track

And as I said earlier it would make clips and their purpose more "discoverable"

Just look at this example:

The four things in that audio track are clips they are not audio tracks.

@Tantacrul this is a UX/GUI design issue surely ...

[SteveDaulton]

I still think the default clip name would be much better and much clearer in intent/purpose it it were
Audio Clip rather than Audio Track

but isn't the idea that the clip name says which track the clip came from?
If I import a track called "808 drums", are you suggesting that the clip should be called "Audio Clip" rather than "808 drums"?

[petersampsonaudacity]

but isn't the idea that the clip name says which track the clip came from?
If I import a track called "808 drums", are you suggesting that the clip should be called "Audio Clip" rather than "808 drums"?

It's a fair cop guv'nor ;-)

[petersampsonaudacity]

See also Default clip titles should not be named "Audio Track" #2499

[LWinterberg]

(I've hidden some of the earlier comments here as they got addressed by #1698)

[LWinterberg]

The easiest way probably would be to change the default from "Audio Track" to "Audio", optionally adding "clip" to each clip afterwards. That way, you'd get something like Audio #1 or Audio Clip #1, both of which probably are sufficiently clear. When importing a file, it'd be Filename or Filename Clip (though I guess there could be a rule that just omits the clip when importing files).

That said, I wonder if there's a good way (or even a use case) for a more sophisticated solution.

[SteveDaulton]

Why not just have a default name for clips (such as "Audio Clip").

If (track-name == default-track-name)
   clip-name = default-clip-name;
else
   clip-name = track-name;