Subject:tool extract region unwanted file name prefix

Posted by: David Thiel

Date:10/27/2007 11:53:44 AM

I am cutting speech clips into pieces for use in an interactive app. The best way for me to do this is to name regions with the file name that I want.
The problem is that the
File Name Prefix
box is filled with the name of the file. I don't want this. I have to go to that box and delete the contents for every file I extract. And I am doing hundreds of these.
There doesn't seem to be any way to not use the File Name Prefix.
I looked into writing a script but getting up to speed on C# and the SF API is outside of the scope of this project.
Is there any simple way that I have missed to get rid of the File Name Prefix? Turning off long names gives file names of 000,001,002.....
thanks
ddt

Subject:RE: tool extract region unwanted file name prefix

Reply by: Kennymusicman

Date:10/27/2007 6:33:30 PM

Does this sort you out:?

Options - preferences --> labels
Then play with region labels.

HTH

Ken

Subject:RE: tool extract region unwanted file name prefix

Reply by: David Thiel

Date:10/27/2007 7:18:08 PM

Thanks but no this doesn't change the Tools>eXtract Region behavior.
It is an odd dialog box as well.
There is not keyboard shortcut for Extract in the Extract Regions dialog.
Even though Extract is highlighted, Enter does not execute it.
You cannot Tab through the interface, it just beeps at you. I know because I want to build a keyboard macro with HotKey that would Tab to the File name prefix, cntl A to select all, delete, and then tab to the Extract button and hit Enter.
The solution would be to have a check box on the File name prefix (to make it optional).
Thanks for the suggestion.
None of this works with or without a keyboard macro.

Subject:RE: tool extract region unwanted file name prefix

Reply by: Kennymusicman

Date:10/28/2007 12:58:06 PM

Are all these speech regions coming from seperate files, or just a couple of large audio files?

If the latter, there is a workflow approach that could save you a bit of effort. Make all your regions, and then extract them. Removes repeated need of removing file name prefix etc.

If the earlier, a simple rename script, or perhaps even batch converter could reduce the amount of renaming you are doing manually. (thinking outside the box a little).

Also, can't seem to be able to assign a key shortcut to "extract regions" for the menu. Under customise keyboard, there is "save regions as files" option, but this is not the right shortcut. This does allow a simple script to turn all your regions into files - but it is locked to the perfect clarity setting, and is in format 'region number'-'filename'-'region name'

Hope that is of some use to you somehow

Ken

Subject:RE: tool extract region unwanted file name prefix

Reply by: David Thiel

Date:10/28/2007 1:46:06 PM

Thanks for the thoughts.
I will clarify in hopes that Sony sees this thread and fixes/enhances the Extract Region dialogue.
In this case I have 160 phrases x five languages (= 800) that need to be manually broken up into two and three parts for reuse.
My workflow is to highlight the first area, then dbl click in a file that has the name I will use for this regions. Then I have an autokey macro that copies it, switches to SF, R for region, paste the name.
Then I dbl click on the other half which selects the remaining parts of the wave file, then I use the AutoKey macro.
Now the file has two (or three) named regions.
Alt,T,X brings up the Extract Regions. Now if the file name prefix box was empty I could write another AutoKey macro that Alt T,X click on Extract, save file (to keep regions marked) Alt F, C to close the file.

But you see the problem. Now I can dive into AutoKey and figure out how to send mouse moves and clicks and I can work around this but this will certainly be fragile.

So, I guess that I got my answer. There is no simple way to clear (or leave blank) the File Name Prefix.

Thanks for your suggestions.

david (daudioguy) thiel

Subject:RE: tool extract region unwanted file name prefix

Reply by: Kennymusicman

Date:10/28/2007 2:29:28 PM

This may help you then:

When you have extract regions open. Click once on select all. This will allow you to then simply tab to file name prefix, and resume the rest of your macro, to run the extraction and so forth. Not perfect, but a whole lot better for you by my understanding (?).

Ken

Subject:RE: tool extract region unwanted file name prefix

Reply by: David Thiel

Date:10/30/2007 4:51:23 PM

Thanks, that was a great suggestion.
It would have not occurred to me that 'select all' (when regions are selected by default) would be neccesary to get the tab to work in moving the cursor down to the File Name Prefix field (which is also all selected by default).

This provided me with a sequence of actions that I could code into an AutoHotKey script. Now once I have set up the destination folder (which persists) I'm just a hot key away from saving the regions that I have established.

This makes Extract Regions way more convenient which is good as I typically have hundreds of these to do on a project.

Thanks Kennymusicman.

ddt