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Blade
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I have no insight into Apple’s naming conventions. I’m not saying they’ve all been given the best possible names.
“Yes…and they are called wheels. It wasn’t changed to some other thing as wheels are in the past. They are wheels, still used as wheels, still called WHEELS. They weren’t changed to ROTATIONAL DEVICES for some arbitrary reason.”
The point of the space shuttle analogy was to demonstrate that the “forward thinking” FCP X (space shuttle) still has legacy tools like the blade tool (wheels). Just because FCP X did not revolutionize every single aspect of video editing and retains some useful legacy tools does not mean that the app is not forward thinking.
Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Videographer | Video Editor | Motion DesignerHow Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com -
Unlike Shane, I am not overly exercised by the issue of the naming convention.
What does irritate me almost beyond expression is the laziness of the implementation.
Blade should be by default an operation not a mode. However, Apple have shown they are just as lazy as everyone else and they have decided that there is a Blade “Tool” that you need to invoke in order to blade.
This is patently absurd and shows that they have no real understanding of how editors work, unlike AVID who have always understood that by default blading is something you need/want to do on the fly.
The first thing you need to do in any FCP X-like NLE (and it’s of course not the only NLE that is guilty of this) is to swap the keyboard shortcuts for the Blade Tool and Blade. In the case of FCP X, you need to swap “B” with “Cmd-B”.
But you shouldn’t have to. You should not need a modifier key for such a key operation.
I know it’s a small thing. But small things show you the weaknesses at the heart of this sort of design better than the big things.
FCP X and Motion in their latest incarnations are riddled with appalling design decisions of this kind. They don’t matter in themselves, but what they show is how little real design intelligence is guiding all of this.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
I feel like most people aren’t turned off by FCP X itself but by the positive things that others say about it. How dare they call it forward thinking? What nerve do these people have to suggest that it has made editing fun for them again? Who are you to say you’re editing faster now? It’s a really odd thing. Now it’s “forward thinking” but not forward thinking enough because Apple didn’t rename every tool. We just can’t win. I don’t know any FCP X user that wants everyone else to use FCP X (Adobe is the company with Evangelists…), but just for people to understand that FCP X is a viable and wonderful tool, and after nearly 6 years one seldom hears, “I recognize that it is a really nice tool, I just prefer Premiere Pro (or Avid, etc.)” it’s normally just misunderstanding and vitriol.
Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Videographer | Video Editor | Motion DesignerHow Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com -
I do not understand how you consider this a “mode”. You have different tools just as you do in Premiere Pro or any other software. Perhaps it’s the same tool albeit with a modifier key, but at that point if you’re pressing a key what’s the difference if you press the B key instead? The number of times I have been annoyed by using the blade tool is precisely zero. With the skimmer —not having to drag or scrub a playhead— Command B is super fast as well. I don’t see how this is even a thing, blading a clip is like the easiest thing in the world.
Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Videographer | Video Editor | Motion DesignerHow Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com -
I think possibly you are over-reacting here.
I suspect that Shane made his original comment more in the spirit of ironic fun than as a profound critique of the entire FCP X Gestalt.
And some of us could do with a bit of fun in our lives right now.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
You are possibly not wrong 😉
Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Videographer | Video Editor | Motion DesignerHow Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com -
[Gabriel Spaulding] “The number of times I have been annoyed by using the blade tool is precisely zero.”
I am a (sort of) software developer. Once you get into that mindset you tend to get very picky about very small things.
Because small things are signifiers of big things.
Or at least that’s been my experience.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
If you are a software developer I imagine that you find Premiere Pro to be exceptionally clunky. In terms of optimal workflows, reduced clicks and window resizing/docking, screen real estate dedicated to actual content, and so much more FCP X does a better job than Premiere Pro, in my opinion. I used Premiere Pro for quite some time before switching to FCP X (the day it was released), and Premiere Pro allowed me to do my job —it is every bit as professional as FCP X, I am not making that argument— but in terms of outdated code, tacking on new code to solve every new problem, panels upon panels upon panels, a seemingly endless list of old bugs, from a coding and UI perspective I do not see how Premiere Pro can possibly win there.
Gabriel Spaulding
Creator & Director of ACE Enterprizes
Videographer | Video Editor | Motion DesignerHow Can We Help You Tell Your Story?
http://www.aceenterprizes.com -
Yes, sorry. It was a “trolling” sort of joke…all in fun. No harm meant. And “kicking and screaming” is also all in fun. I’m interested in finally trying to dig in and work with this. See what all the fuss is about.
I was genuinely curious about the naming convention and the icon…but it’s not a big deal. Just meant in fun.
Didn’t mean to insult anyone, Jeff…
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Simon Ubsdell] “They also understood that it’s an action you want to perform on the fly, which is why making Blade a mode is an imbecilic idea. “
Yes. That’s why I changed the keyboard shortcut for the B-key from “Blade Tool” to “Blade”. Now it works as it should have from the beginning. Took me about 1 minute to figure it out.
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Brett Sherman
One Man Band (If it\’s video related I\’ll do it!)
I work for an institution that probably does not want to be associated with my babblings here.
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