The following sections give information about GoldWave's user interface, features, and menu structure. The first few sections provide general overviews, while subsequent sections provide details on menu commands.
GoldWave is composed of three windows: the Main window, Sound windows, and the Control window.
The Main window contains the main menu, two rows of toolbar buttons, and status bars (see Main Window figure below). It groups together and manages all the Sound windows.
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The toolbar buttons provide quick access to many of the frequently used commands. The upper bar holds File, Edit, View, and Tool commands, while the lower bar contains Effect commands. The function of each button is displayed when the mouse pointer is positioned directly over it. Right-click on Effect buttons to display a list of presets for that effect.
Use Toolbar in the Options menu to configure the toolbar.
Click-and-drag the left edge of a toolbar to move it. To reorder toolbars, right-click on the toolbar and choose Allow Toolbar Reordering.
The status bars show attributes of the Sound window, including the channels, length, selected region, playback position, modified status, zoom level, and general file format information. By clicking the mouse pointer over any status item with an inverted triangle on its right side, the unit or format for that status item can be changed. If you click the mouse pointer over the "Length" item, for example, a menu lists file lengths in terms of storage size, time, and samples. Clicking on the "Channel" item displays a channel selection window.
| ▲Channel | ▼Length | ▼Selection Range | ▲Playback Position | Coordinates |
| Modified | ▼Zoom | Format Description | ||
Sound windows are created when you open a file. These windows contain a waveform graph of the sound with a time axis near the bottom. For stereo sounds, two separate graphs are shown. The top white graph is the left channel and the bottom red graph is the right channel (see Channels for other colours). The selected part of the sound is highlighted with a blue background between two cyan markers. Initially the entire sound is selected. A vertical line with a left pointing triangle shows the current playback position within the sound. This line is the playback marker.
A cue point slot is located just below the graph. Cue points are shown as inverted yellow and blue triangles. Overlapping cue points are shown in slightly different colours.
Near the bottom of the Sound window, a small Overview area shows the entire sound with the selected part in highlighted green and/or red with a blue background and the rest with a black background. White gradient edges indicate what part of the sound is currently displayed and zoomed.
Use the mouse buttons or the keyboard to change the selection. See Editing Overview for details. You can configure the window size and axes format of Sound windows using the Options | Window command and set the function of the left mouse button. The Options | Colours command sets the colour scheme.
The Control window interacts with your sound hardware. It contains buttons to play and record sounds as well as controls for volume, balance, and playback speed. Real-time visuals display audio data whenever a sound is played or recorded. See Control Overview for more details.