Boy will this be a debate starter…

[James Culbertson]

Does an app do what you need it to do in a way that is efficient and enjoyable for you? That’s the only question. Everything else is extra until you need it. If you are addicted to using or playing with features you don’t need there is a bigger issue involved. If an applications complexity gets in the way of simple needs that is a problem. Word, Photoshop and After Effects are very complex (perhaps even bloated) applications, but most of the time I use them for very simple needs, and they work very well for those needs. If an apps complexity gets in the way, then find another app.

[Andrew Kimery]

Stu has a great way of taking something that could be complex and explaining it in a very clear, concise way. A hallway with doors is certainly a better than any analogy we’ve been able to come up with. 😉

One of my favorite applicable quotes is from Alan Kay, an accomplished computer scientist, who said “Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.”

Feature creep certainly can be a problem but so can buying a bunch of specialized apps and then trying to incorporate them all into a cohesive workflow. I think the balancing of ‘doors’ is an ongoing process throughout the life of any app. Too few and people might say it doesn’t do enough but too many and some people might call it bloated.

Since this is forum about NLEs, let’s look at NLEs. How many today would be interested in an NLE that just cut video? No GFX. No titler. No Audio mixing. No color correction. Only the most basic export options. That would certainly remove a lot of doors but would it even be a hallway worth visiting at that point? It could be, but you’d also need to visit many other hallways for audio, online, etc., and each of those hallways would have their own doors… So are you really saving yourself any doors, or are you just putting the them in different hallways?

I think Adobe linking PPro to AE and SpeedGrade is a good example of trying to find a happy medium between doors and hallways. Dumping all of AE’s or SG’s doors into PPro’s hallway would be a disaster so even though PPro does have some AE/SG-type doors it also has a door that goes directly to AE and another door that goes directly to SG. Adobe knows that going to SG opens up a lot of other doors (maybe too many) so they’ve added some more SG-type doors to PPro (the Lumetri Color Panel).

Sometimes the user is the problem though, not doors. If the user doesn’t read the freaking manual they could go stumbling into doors yelling, “What the hell is this?” even though they have a guide in their back pocket telling them what the hell it is.

I remember when I first opened Color and, like most people, wondered what the hell I was looking at. Long story short, I bought Walter Biscardi’s intro to Color tutorial and that changed everything. I think it was 2hrs long and Walter went through every window, button, prompt, check box, menu item etc., and described what it was for. By the end of it I felt totally confident that I could use the app (and I did on a nearly daily basis for a number of years). To use Stu’s analogy, I paid for a guided tour of all the doors and it made all the difference in the world.

When do you have too many doors and when do you have too few doors? That’s really up to the dev, the user base (which as we know is always unified in its needs), and time.

[Walter Soyka]

This is kind of the UNIX philosophy: lots of focused little tools that you can chain together to do your work. But what does this change? In UNIX, you can’t get anything done until you know a bunch of those focused little tools.

But I think for tasks of any real complexity, this just changes the frame of reference for what the hall is and what the doors are.

To Andrew’s point, if you had separate tightly-focused apps for logging, editing, audio, titling, graphics, color, etc., with no option to handle them all in-app, then your workflow is now the hall, and those 6+ individual apps are now the doors. (And we don’t really have the easy cross-tool integration that UNIX does for chaining tools together.)

Is there room for simple, tightly-focused tools in our industry? Yes, absolutely. Should all tools in our industry be simple and tightly-focused? No way.

Here’s a question for you: how many doors are there in FCPX’s hallway?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Oliver Peters]

It seems like this is precisely the balance Apple has always strived for and more importantly, what ProApps has and is trying to do with FCP X. But it is a balance. This may well be the point at which Resolve 12 ends up jumping the shark.

Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Herb Sevush]

Interesting article. To keep the analogy going, I would say it’s important to know how frequently you will be visiting the hallway. If it’s only occasionally – then less doors are better. If your in that freakin’ hallway all day long, then I want as many doors as possible, as long as they all take me someplace I want to go.

If the hallway is for downloading clips and I only do this once in a while, I want it simple. If my job is as a bit-wrangler and I’m at it all day long, then I’ll have different priorities.

If I’m using Magic Bullet Looks in my NLE (and I do) then I’ll want something simpler than if I were a full time colorist using Resolve.

The article was written from a developers standpoint. From a user’s standpoint I long for the software that has all the doors I need and not a single one more. In that sense Adobe is closest – it let’s you add complexity by linking to other programs at your discretion.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Andrew Kimery] ” How many today would be interested in an NLE that just cut video? No GFX. No titler. No Audio mixing. No color correction. Only the most basic export options. That would certainly remove a lot of doors but would it even be a hallway worth visiting at that point?”

Lightworks anyone?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Paul Neumann]

I agree. I’m most productive in Adobe’s hallway. I enter through prelude and go from there. It’s why I want to see media browser in every product. One Director I work with a lot picks his shots in prelude and then just leaves the project sitting on my premiere pro doorstep.

[Bill Davis]

Seems to me that X is a bit like a factory with designated areas for tasks.

Where other software might be seen as more of a huge open room with hundreds of doorways, X is a bit more modularized.

You enter via the Event Space, in that, you can spend the whole day working, pre-trimming (range setting), keywording and doing other useful stuff.

When you’re ready, you enter the Storyline space to complete your edit. Yes, the basic inteface has a solid handrail of rooms, like the Timeline Index, the Inspector and the Motion/Title space – but really not too many.

And many of the rooms actually function more like cabinets on the wall. Everything on the Menu Bar kinda slides open for access, then slides shut for organizational efficiency.

When you do something like Multicam – it’s found in it’s own room.

When you’re done, you exit to the Share Room.

It’s an imperfect and somewhat strained description, but it does kinda describe the way X is organized.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Bill Davis] “It’s an imperfect and somewhat strained description, but it does kinda describe the way X is organized.”

And this is why I said Stu is so much better at metaphors. 😉

He beautifully illustrates his point with a simple metaphor about doors in a hallway while we have factories, cabinets, spaces, rooms, doors, hallways, handrails, designated task areas and, finally, a disclaimer at the end apologizing for the mess. 😉

[Andrew Kimery]

[Herb Sevush] “The article was written from a developers standpoint. From a user’s standpoint I long for the software that has all the doors I need and not a single one more. In that sense Adobe is closest – it let’s you add complexity by linking to other programs at your discretion.”

Every user has different wants though and that’s what devs have to struggle with. Who do you listen to and who do you not listen to?