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Do you think Apple will ever update FCP’s UI?
Do you think Apple will ever update Final Cut’s layout and UI (it hasn’t changed since it was first released, save a few new features)? I personally would like a single window interface (with multiple sections of course) like Aperture. If Apple were to redo the UI, how would you like it to be done? Or do you like it just as it is.
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21 Replies
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[Benjamin Daines] “Do you think Apple will ever update Final Cut’s layout and UI”
Hopefully not. It’s a solid UI and really nothing that needs changing. The only option I want is to be able to run it in a dark interface color rather than light, just like Color’s interface.
Avid has barely touched its basic UI since it came out because once folks get used it to, you really don’t want to mess with it. After Effects is essentially unchanged since it came out. Some new docks and whatnot, but I’ve been using it since 1996 and it’s basically the same.
I see no reason to do any drastic changes to the UI. There are already Single screen options for FCP and you can adjust the window layout to your heart’s content. I have 14 different window layouts that I use depending on the task at hand.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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I would hate to see a single window UI. I grew up on multiple window UIs in my software, and love being able to spread the windows across 2 monitors to suit my tastes. If anything, I could name programs like Shake that use a single window that I’d like to see using multiple windows.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/ -
Walter, the AVID interface isn’t really the same as in 1992, is it?
Version 3 of AVID isn’t the same as version 7 (or is it 8) of AVID now.
But FCP is the same since 2000, isn’t it? The look I mean.
And the FCP database is the same too.
You need to uprez, forget about it. Still a big pain.As I’ve said before, you should be able to “select all” your timeline,
then pop up a dialog box, ask it to change all the shi….. stuff to
whatever format you want, hit go, and it does.
If you need to ingest new tapes for a new format, that’s fine. It should
tell you to do that. Why not?Software is supposed to work for us, not the other way around. No?
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Avid’s interface hasn’t changed much since the Meridien days (90’s).
The big difference is that almost every bit of Avid’s interface is customizable. You can change the colors of the video tracks, audio tracks, buttons, what colors are show for selected buttons, the seperation between buttons, the look of the buttons, the highlight on them, etc…
If FCP simply added this type of customization it wouldn’t require you to relearn the interface, but you could customize it to what suits you best (light a dark grey background).
Michael
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>Do you think Apple will ever update Final Cut’s layout and UI?
Kind of depends on what you’re talking about Ben, a wholehearted change in the UI design, or minor tweaks in how how stuff is handled in the existing UI? I would rather doubt the former will happen and I should certainly hope not as there’s nothing wrong with the interface they have. The latter? Well, it would be nice to allow a little more customization like being able to define your own window/track/label colors etc, be able to do more within the existing interface, like group clips, name tracks, drag tracks to reorder them, better nest handling including expand collapse nests within an existing sequence, be able to lock focus on the viewer when insert and overwriting etc etc blah blah blah … frankly, my own list is way too long to spout off here and I dare say it wouldn’t touch on a fraction of anyone else’s wish list including your own.
Single window interface? Nope, don’t want that at all and would hate for the devs to waste precious time on it when there is so much else to do! But heck, I might be in the minority on that so if it did happen, well then so be it … but hopefully it would just be an option.
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[Dan Riley] “Walter, the AVID interface isn’t really the same as in 1992, is it? “
The basics of it are still the same. It’s been dressed up and has more customizeable features. But the basic interface is still the same. I trained on AVID back in 1992 / 1993 and what I trained on then is essentially the same interface that is out there today.
[Dan Riley] “As I’ve said before, you should be able to “select all” your timeline,
then pop up a dialog box, ask it to change all the shi….. stuff to
whatever format you want, hit go, and it does. “Never have had a need for this nor do I see a need for this. If you really want all your footage to be a particular format, that you invest in a proper capture card such as an AJA Kona 3 to convert all your footage on the way in. If you’re working with card material, then you have a very fast system to convert the material using the unlimited RT with a render at the end. Your needs may vary, but we really don’t have a need for this and we work with pretty much every single format / frame rate under the sun.
[Dan Riley] “If you need to ingest new tapes for a new format, that’s fine. It should
tell you to do that. Why not? “How does the software know what format you want to ingest in? It only does what the operator says to do. There are many reasons to ingest one format but edit in another. FCP has added the feature of warning you if a shot does not match the Sequence setup if it’s the first shot you’re dropping in. But I don’t understand why the software has to tell you what format to ingest in.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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[Andy Mees] “Single window interface? Nope, don’t want that at all and would hate for the devs to waste precious time on it when there is so much else to do! “
Yep, wholeheartedly agree on this one. Single Window Interfaces are far too limiting.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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The only thing that let an ancient piece of code that is FCP to drag along so far is the interface. It makes sense. They just need to get reed of whatever inconsistent behavior there is.
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I find the problem with the FCP interface is not the layout, but rather the lack of serious customization. After familiarizing oneself with things like hotkeys, who really needs the space hogging play bars under the video windows. This is one area where the AVID does allow one to make a pure bare interface and use hotkeys for everything that had a icon button
Another problem is the inability to customize the default locations of tabs. It should be possible to save a moved tab window as a default. I hate that every time a clip is loaded in the source window, the keyframes effects tab moves back to that space-constricted window. Just having the ability to initiate sticky tabs would be so useful and easy to implement.
As mentioned, darkening the interface to a neutral grey would be great as well.
Some of the few things I hope are implemented in FCP 7.
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I’d like to to take a few things from DVDSP and Motion:
The ability to move tabs left and right within a window.
A bit darker in color tone like Motion.
Port the keyframe editor from Motion into FCP.
I’d like to see an implementation of Dashboard or the HUD with FCP – saves a lot of double-clicking to load a clip into viewer.
A mini waveform inside the Viewer Video Tab – makes slicing interviews a lot easier!
But my personal #1 is STILL -UNDO HISTORY LIST!!!
Chi-Ho Lee
Film & Television Editor
Apple Certified Final Cut Pro Trainer
http://www.chiholee.com
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