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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Blisterexe@lemmy.zip to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

Good video, very much worth watching despite the length. New UI will look something like this:

with an option for a more classic look.

Looks like an enourmous UX improvement too, and a rewrite to QT and eliminating a lot of technical debt will make development faster.

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[-] warmaster@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

It's looking freaking gorgeous. Tentacrul is the bomb. His work on MuseScore is arguably the best UX/UI in the FOSS world. It even beats most if not all of the proprietary alternatives in the same category.

[-] nomen_dubium@startrek.website 1 points 6 hours ago

cos the ui is why people abandoned it... :picard:

the audacity (sorry :D)

[-] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Now when will Gimp get the same treatment... I know some people like it but I just can't. I'd rather use Affinity Photo via proton

[-] TruePe4rl@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I usually go with Krita. Not because of the UI, i just learnt to use it first and like it. Or Inkscape for vector graphics.

[-] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 6 hours ago

Krita I tried for while, but I've been spoiled by Affinity Photo's selection tool. Can't use path tool or magic wand anymore

[-] Krudler@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

Gimp is a misbegotten, irredeemable piece of UI trash. The fact that it's been around this long and gets egregiously worse with each iteration is baffling to me.

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 11 points 13 hours ago

That logo is fucking terrible. Cult minimalism produced a red sperm and a disconnected semicircle. It reads as nothing.

The 'classic look' in dark mode still puts 90% of the interface in light mode.

No other complaints.

In the video, Tantacrul shows how it matches with the aesthetic of the rest of Muse's icons...but it kind of doesn't.

He (correctly) insisted on keeping the headphone iconography, but the rest of Muse's icons are letters. UltimateGuitar's imp ears plus arrow makes a G one, then the others are abstract geometric T for Tonebridge, a weird S for MuseScore, a really bad circle/diagonal line for an A for audio.com and two verticle lines and a circle for an H for MuseHub, whatever the hell that is. And then Audacity's headphones. Going for stylistic resemblance...for the logos of websites, phone apps and desktop apps that probably won't be seen together. Plus in a lot of places MuseScore's Mu with fermata mark is still in use.

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 hours ago

Honestly, the comparison with the rest of those icons was the only part I respected. It's a suite of cult minimalist bullshit. Which still doesn't explain how nobody went, "that's a sperm."

Or at least, "why isn't it blue or yellow?"

Doesn't look like a sperm to me, it looks like broken headphones.

The magenta is also...it's like, if the Firefox logo was suddenly green. That's not Audacity's color.

[-] morto@piefed.social 110 points 1 day ago

Full UI overhaul?! I can't believe they had the audacity to do this!

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 7 points 1 day ago

i mean they were using the rather old wxwidgets

[-] morto@piefed.social 28 points 1 day ago

I'm not criticising. I just wanted to play with the word audacity

[-] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 71 points 1 day ago

I'm so glad Audacity is getting some much needed love!

[-] Horsey@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

Holy shit yes. Also while we’re at it please guys add an option to put the timeline in just seconds instead of minutes:seconds

[-] Olap@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago

Tenacity has replaced this years ago. Fuck around, find out!

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 30 points 1 day ago

they backtracked on the privacy policy and said they had really overzealous lawyers that they somehow mistrusted lawyers doing so "out of an abundance of caution" so i'm still giving them one final chance here since that issue was resolved rather quickly (within two weeks, which is why i'm not absolving them and giving them a chance, but it's been uneventful since 2021 so i think that strike's gonna expire in a year)

and i don't think the telemetry was every an issue since it was always going to be opt-in

tenacity does not have the rally useful beats and measures feature for some reason

[-] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

if the concern is just about telemetry, I seriously wonder why Tenacity isn’t just a soft fork of Audacity, like VSCodium is to VS code, or Librewolf to Firefox.

that way you get the best of both worlds, the amazing new features in Audacity, without the worry of corporate control

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Because then you're just describing Audacity. The concerning feature has to be intentionally activated by the user. And if you download and build it yourself then that part of the code isn't even accessible. You have to modify the code to activate it before you build it. I'm actually glad with the way they handled it. They listen to the user base and if you follow tantacrul he regularly consults changes with the users.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 12 hours ago

telemetry and a reverted privacy policy change that lost some goodwill, but i agree

[-] Olap@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

They also pissed off a lot of contributors and community members. Tenacity for me!

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 12 hours ago

…through what i mentioned. audacity for now!!

[-] procapra@lemmy.ml 0 points 11 hours ago

Yep. Tenacity all the way!

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

And what exactly does Tenacity bring to the table other than a name replace across the code-base?

The non-destructive editing and realtime effects alone are a huge jump in capability between the current and old versions of Audacity, and that's before we even discuss UI improvements

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 12 points 1 day ago

From what I could tell when I looked into it after a comment someone left on !nebula@lemmy.world, some people were very upset at the privacy implications of Audacity adding an update detection mechanism (which can be turned off, and which is not included at all in the default build if you build it yourself).

[-] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Are people are actually upset about an auto update feature? A feature that has been pretty standard in programs for a very long time?

I understood some of the upset when they added telemetry, but auto-update?

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 17 points 23 hours ago

Not even auto-update. Just auto detect updates. Then you go and download it yourself manually.

Auto-update-detection meant that the software was calling out to a remote server, so they updated the TOS to reflect that, and people got upset.

[-] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 day ago

afaik most distros and flathub package it without that for obvious reasons

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 12 hours ago

(for package management, not weird concerns like “they’re adding an entire http library to audacity for this so they must be in the process of using it for something else”)

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[-] KiwiTB@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Yeah... Who the hell uses audacity anymore.

Basically everyone.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 32 points 1 day ago

i've yet to meet a single person who uses tenacity

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago

Hope the new UI fixes the FFT view lagging.

[-] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 hours ago

should, since it ports all the Ui from wxwidgets to qt

[-] markz@suppo.fi 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Watched last weekend. Not a huge fan of the rebrand, but the changes that actually count look great.

[-] clb92@feddit.dk 27 points 1 day ago

Yeah, the branding is definitely 'meh' at best, but even worse, in my opinion, is the tight integration with the whole Muse ecosystem and MuseHub thing (and the default download on the website being the MuseHub-based installer too) and built-in cloud storage crap. It just feels wrong to have an open source application integrated so tightly into all their proprietary services all the way through. Just installed the latest version 3.7.5, and I was surprised at how much nagging there was, on both the website and in the application itself.

But other than the whole Muse stuff, Audacity 4.0 looks really awesome in terms of UI and UX. And at least there is a non-MuseHub installer and you can choose not to use their other stuff, and say no to the telemetry...

[-] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Frankly, since it's still open source, I'm ok with it since it also means developpement is much faster, and you can avoid it. At least for me when I installed it on linux through the app store, I didn't notice any of your complaints.

As someone with no attachement to the previous branding I quite like the new branding though, fits the new vibe of the app quite well.

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[-] sol6_vi@lemmy.makearmy.io -3 points 12 hours ago

They had to give us something for all that telemetry to keep their entirely educated and tech savy user base on board. 🙄

[-] miked@piefed.social 11 points 1 day ago

OMG! I read that as Full AI Overhaul.

[-] NewOldGuard@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago

They are adding “AI” features in a collaboration with Intel, but luckily they’re minor additions like ML based noise reduction

[-] AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 25 minutes ago

This isn't new, the features have been in the app for a while now

[-] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago

In other words tasks that "AI" is actually good for, not attempting to generate your music or apply some kind of "magic filter".

[-] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago

Also subtitling with whisper, which is awesome

[-] Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago

Damn that looks clean.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago

All the changes seem awesome, looking forward to trying out version 4

[-] whiskers165@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

Audacity UI has looked basically the same since the first time I used the app in 2006

[-] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 5 points 1 day ago

(Based on the screenshot only) Where's the menu gone?

[-] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 day ago

Screenshot from macos, so I assume in the top bar

[-] fakeman_pretendname@feddit.uk 3 points 19 hours ago

Thanks. I tend to worry with redesigns these days.

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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
271 points (97.5% liked)

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