Navigating Effects

Accessing Effects with Shortcuts
  Shortcuts can be added in Keyboard Preferences to items in the Generate, Effect or Analyze menus, including plug-ins that you added yourself. The shortcut activates the effect if the effect has no dialog, or opens the effect dialog.

 "Repeat Last Effect" (or  on Mac) can be used to repeat the last used effect at its last used settings. If you grab a noise profile with Noise Removal then use "Repeat Last Effect", noise will be removed at the current settings rather than grabbing a new noise profile. Windows:   AutoHotKey (open source)  PowerPro (freeware)  Robotask (paid for)  OS X:   QuickKeys (paid for)  Keyboard Maestro (paid for)  Automator (built into recent OS X) or  AppleScipt (requires detailed UI knowledge, try UIBrowser Assistant to overcome this). 

Working examples in AutoHotKey: (contributed by Rabbi-m):

Windows key + u = Fade In:
 * u::Send !{c}f{Enter}

Windows key + y = Fade Out:
 * y::Send !{c}ff{Enter}</ul>

Other keyboard methods

 * On Windows and Linux, pressing then  opens the Effect menu and takes you to the top of the list without having to use a mouse
 * On Linux you may have to hold down.


 * You can scroll up and down the menu one item at a time with the up and down arrow keys. If you are already at the top of the menu, the up arrow will skip to the bottom item of the menu.
 * On Linux, effects underneath the divider are grouped as "Plug-ins 1 - 15", "Plug-ins 16 - 30" and so on. Use to move into the list of plug-ins in the group.


 * Press on the keyboard to open the highlighted effect.


 * Once in the Effect, you can use to navigate forwards through the text boxes, sliders and buttons. Hold  while pressing  to skip backwards. You can use the arrow keys,, .  or  to control a slider.
 * On Linux you must click in a box or slider before you can navigate with the keyboard.
 * On Mac, and  do not work with sliders.


 * Once you have used an effect, you can use "Repeat Last Effect" at the top of the menu to repeat that effect with those last used parameters. This also has a shortcut (or  on a Mac). You can change this shortcut to something else in the Keyboard Preferences.

Faster navigation

 * On Windows, at any stage when the menu is open you can navigate to the next effect starting with a particular letter by typing that letter. For example, from the top of the menu:
 * press H then H to reach "High Pass Filter" (underneath the divider, because the effect is in Audacity's Plug-Ins folder)
 * press C then C to reach "Change Speed".


 * On Linux, seeking effects by letter does not work but you can use or  instead (which do not work on Windows) to skip items, followed by up or down arrow.


 * On Mac OS X, hold and press  then type the first few letters of the root menu item, then type the first few letters of the item required in that menu.
 * Tabbing between buttons in dialogs is off by default. Tabbing can be enabled by opening the System Keyboard Preferences, choose the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab, then under "Full Keyboard Access", choose the radio button "All controls".