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A negative about CC frequent updates
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All of the documentation went online several versions ago. There was a decreasing need for manuals and customer feedback supported the idea that more people were looking online and other means for finding answers to your questions. Granted, a small portion of customers still really like this method. For them, I encourage printing a hard copy of the PDF materials.
Our answer these days is primarily this:
Essentially, all menu items and the manual and extra content and curated third party content are to be found here.
Here’s the link: Premiere Pro Help
Here is the reference PDF: https://helpx.adobe.com/pdf/premiere_pro_reference.pdf
At almost 600 pages, I hope it is enough for most people. 😉
Dennis
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What about stability and varying systems? I know there was some discussion on the Avid forums about being wary of point-releases coming out willy-nilly and what that might do to various system set-ups for various clients. How does Adobe address that, or do you do little releases that probably won’t cause a problem and major releases with system requirements?
Also, how does a subscription set-up push Adobe to keep pace with development and releases? Seems to me that there would be no rush as the annual fees have already been paid.
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Dennis Radeke] “At almost 600 pages, I hope it is enough for most people. ;-)”
It well might be enough for most people but that doesn’t make it enough. There are any number of menu choices that come up that are not explained or even mentioned in the PDF, which itself is confusing because of the 45 pages of “release notes” which serve as a pre-amble.
For instance, it appears that multicam source sequences have to be on track 1 of the target timeline or they won’t function. I haven’t found this important bit of info mentioned in the PDF, and I have looked.
PPro has become a very deep and complex program and while documentation is expensive and print is old fashioned there needs to be some organized way to find out the properties of a given function that does not require a user to wade threw a host of youtube videos that may or may not give the information you are looking for.
Knowing that the PDF covers 90% of the features doesn’t help you when you are drowning for lack of knowledge about the other 10%.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Walter Soyka] “obviously they still have a development process in place. There is no reason that documentation couldn’t happen along with development.”
I know there is a development process, what I was talking about was the value of an established, reliable development cycle, that allows for the comprehensive scheduling that good print documentation requires. Once you throw printed documentation out the window, then the cycle can be sped up, but if your on-line PDF starts out with 45 pages of release notes, then I suggest that someone is not minding the store. Short irregular release schedules can lead to disorganization — the lure of “hey lets get this new feature out quick” has it’s downsides.
PPro case in point — in one of the later releases PPro introduced a very good feature that allows the editor to rearrange the layout of sources in the multicam window, i.e., switching camera 1 from upper right to lower left in a 4 screen window. Excellent feature, well implemented. However the feature is located only in the preview window menu and is called “edit cameras.” No indication whatsoever that this is a “multicam” feature. I knew this feature existed, but I didn’t know the name of it so I spent way too long trying to find it. This is the kind of chaos you get when software designers add new features without review.
Can a company keep order while speeding up release cycles? Possibly, but I think it’s much harder.
[Walter Soyka] “Preserving some legacy organization is a good thing because it means that current users will already understand how to find the features (making them highly discoverable), but it becomes a bad thing when the original organization no longer makes sense. A certain degree of complexity is necessary for controlling a large amount of functionality, but this shouldn’t be the same as outright disorganization.”
Yes, this is an issue for all organized data, whether composed of computer code or national tax codes. This is the OSX vs Windows paradigm. The longer the legacy, the greater the complexity of structure. Blowing things up and starting over allows the FCPX PDF to come in complete at under 500 pages. However I believe a middle road is achievable, but not without effort (=dollars.)
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “For instance, it appears that multicam source sequences have to be on track 1 of the target timeline or they won’t function. I haven’t found this important bit of info mentioned in the PDF, and I have looked.”
True and sorta not true. To see the cameras/angles in the preview/multicam window the clip needs to be in track 1. If the clip is in any other track you can still toggle through the cameras/angles using your number keys.
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[Paul Neumann] “To see the cameras/angles in the preview/multicam window the clip needs to be in track 1. If the clip is in any other track you can still toggle through the cameras/angles using your number keys.”
Thank you for that, and yet another bit of info NOT in the PDF.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Yeah I use that all the time with multicam green screen stuff.
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[Herb Sevush] “I know there is a development process, what I was talking about was the value of an established, reliable development cycle, that allows for the comprehensive scheduling that good print documentation requires. Once you throw printed documentation out the window, then the cycle can be sped up, but if your on-line PDF starts out with 45 pages of release notes, then I suggest that someone is not minding the store. Short irregular release schedules can lead to disorganization — the lure of “hey lets get this new feature out quick” has it’s downsides.”
I guess I don’t see the connection between the change in release schedule and documentation. I agree with you that the documentation should be improved, but I don’t see that documentation problems are caused by CC’s frequent updates.
The change in release schedule is putting development closer to the user, not really accelerating development or rushing things out the door. Whether you are releasing 12 features once a year, or 3 features four times a year, you’re developing, testing, and documenting the same number of features. This should be manageable.
The “sneak peek” community (who aren’t even Adobe employees, and many of whom provide totally free tutorials) is able to release fully-produced new feature video tutorials on the day that new versions are publicly announced. Why couldn’t Adobe better document these same features by the time they are released if they made a point to do so? I think there’s an over-emphasis on third-party community resources. The first-party written documentation should be comprehensive, even if it’s somewhat duplicative.
I agree that new features are mistakenly treated as release notes. New features should be immediately folded into the main documentation where they belong, and a separate release notes document should be prepared.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Scott Witthaus] “What about stability and varying systems? I know there was some discussion on the Avid forums about being wary of point-releases coming out willy-nilly and what that might do to various system set-ups for various clients. How does Adobe address that, or do you do little releases that probably won’t cause a problem and major releases with system requirements?”
Just like any other update, wait a few weeks to see if people start reporting issues.
[Scott Witthaus] “Also, how does a subscription set-up push Adobe to keep pace with development and releases? Seems to me that there would be no rush as the annual fees have already been paid.”
At least from an NLE stand point FCP X, Avid MC, Lightworks and even Resolve are all competitors to PPro. If Adobe coasts editors will jump ship. Around a decade ago Avid started coasting (even w/the a subscription plan) and users starting moving to FCP (and they had sunk way more money into Avid than CC users will sink into Adobe).
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[Walter Soyka] “Whether you are releasing 12 features once a year, or 3 features four times a year, you’re developing, testing, and documenting the same number of features. This should be manageable.”
The difficulty comes in integrating the new information into the old. it is not hard to document a new feature, Adobe does this now with their release notes. What’s hard is integrating, let’s say, a new timeline feature into the already existing chapter you have on timeline layouts. figuring out how to relate the new to the old and present it in a seamless way. Doing that once a year is hard enough, doing that 4 times a year is asking a lot. Again, it’s not about documenting the feature in isolation, it’s about figuring out how and where to integrate the new information into the existing structure, which is why creating a video about the new feature is so much easier than actually revising all your existing documentation to absorb it in a logical way for the user to find and understand.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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