[Tim Wilson]

[Trevor Asquerthian] “Version 3.5.1.209 released on 2/14/2016

Fixed an issue in the Creative Cloud for desktop app for Mac”

Ideal scenario, A: Do no harm.

Ideal scenario, B: Work around the clock, including a holiday weekend, until you post the fix.

This really was a pretty fgjking hideous bug, but very impressive response time over a weekend getting it fixed. (Earliest report I can find is Thursday afternoon, to Sunday morning for the fix.)

Not that I have a super-long list of bugs quite this bug-tastic over the years, but I sure don’t have anybody else on my list of sub-72 hour fix turnarounds….and if there were, srsly, Valentines/Presidents Day weekend? Noice.

[Tim Wilson]

[Walter Soyka] “The “long-tooth crusade” to add useful features?
“

The long-tooth crusade to add BACK features that used to be a compelling part of Apple’s message: “It all works together seamlessly.”

Except now, it doesn’t.

This isn’t some passive-aggressive harangue from a Apple-hater insisting that Apple act in some bizarre manner to suit my own unholy, nightmare perversions. This was an ACTUAL APPLE FEATURE.

Or is this too part of my perverted fever dream? The drugs have worked well, but they may not have worked miracles. Is it the tongue of a demon in my ear, licking the lascivious lie that Apple used to have products that worked really well together, and they work together less well now?

So I’m assuming a lot here. I’m assuming that I’m currently in a state of relative psychotropic equilibrium, and I’m assuming that I’m not being deceived by Old Scratch. Instead of “FCP Legend,” should I be calling it “FCP Apple-Hating Schizophrenic’s Drooling Rant?”

(Actually, if you don’t mind, I’m going to call it that anyway.)

In any case, nobody has presented the advantage that Apple has introduced by REDUCING the degree of integration between its products in its new vision for how things are supposed to work in the best possible world, ie, Apple’s.

My guess is that there’s not one, but I’ve guessed wrong before. So I’ll ask it as a question: what has Apple, or Apple’s customers, gained from Apple making its products work less well together over time?

[Tim Wilson]

[Walter Soyka] “The brilliance of the old system was abstracting all that away from other apps, so they never had to know that they were using a Motion project; it just felt like a regular piece of media, just like any other .MOV file. By engineering the system well, integration came for free.”

That’s exactly the direction that I personally would tend to identify as “modern,” “forward,” and “generally a good thing.”

So why is it, in practice, backwards and perfidious of me to want, or beneath Apple’s apparent level of interest, to continue the existence of integration that comes for free?

Or is this new, un-integrated, and — do I understand correctly? — un-integratable new arrangement superior in some way that my dinosaur eyes don’t see? What’s the advantage for either Apple or its customers for Apple to be so committed to not integrating its products as well as they used to be?

Of course, all of this assumes that I’m understanding you, which, through no fault of yours, is likely more optimistic than is useful.

What’s the what?

[Tim Wilson]

[Eric Kirk] “So, look no further than the rude and belligerent way in which you talk to people.”

Justin, I can also see some places where people tried to help you by starting with follow-up questions, but you never answered them. In fact, just today on another thread where you asked why nobody was answering you, there are 2 people trying to help, and you haven’t replied to either one of them. There are also other threads where this is the case.

There are additional problems on other threads, too. For example, on one thread you are offered a solution that could have been easily adapted (changing a clock to a counter — the technique for placing it onscreen and animating would work perfectly), and in another, you did not use Google’s search options to request only recent answers. (Click “Search Tools,” and under the “Any Time” dropdown menu, select the time range you desire.) Those are your problems, not the COW’s.

So, to follow up on Eric’s observations, I will make three suggestions:

1) Don’t post when you’re upset or angry. This is actually my #1 suggestion to everyone, everywhere, including Twitter and Facebook. Good things rarely come from angry posts. Very bad things often do.

Believe me, we all understand what it’s like to be upset. Creative COW was started in 1995 by video producers who couldn’t find the help they needed online when their equipment was failing. Gear was expensive back then, and people like me were literally taking out second mortgages on our homes to get started. The safety of our families was at stake.

But you still have to speak to people online in a way that they can hear you. Which also means, in a way that they can “see” you. Which brings me to:

2) Limit your use of all caps and exclamation points. You will not need to try as hard with this if you’re less upset when you post, but look around. People just don’t use a lot of all caps and exclamation points in typical conversation. Sometimes they might do it in a way that’s intentionally humorous, but apart from that context, it really is considered hostile.

It’s also considered completely unprofessional. Don’t forget: Creative COW is a community that was started by, and for, full-time media professionals. Students in related fields have of course found a home here, as have professionals in other fields whose jobs require skills in video and graphics.

But it is a community of and for professionals. A certain level of decorum is expected.

3) Remember that the people here want to help. Creative COW’s roots go back to 1995. We’re still around because people are generous with their time and experience. The people who participate in the COW remember that part of the reason we’re still here is because of all the people who’ve helped us.

So instead of coming in hostile, insisting that you get no help or bad advice, behave like a professional, and participate in the conversations that people are in fact trying to help you with.

Please note that those are my personal observations as a media professional for 20 years before I joined Creative COW. Speaking as part of the official Creative COW team for 10 years, I can also tell you that most of our 300,000 members are finding what they need most of the time. I honestly believe that you can too if you can participate in a more appropriate way.

Good luck,

Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Once a post has been replied to, it’s no longer editable…but it SHOULD have been editable before that. Hmmm….I’ll keep an eye peeled, but glad to hear that your posts are going up as they should be!

Thanks,
Tim

[Tim Wilson]

Our records show your account as unmoderated, so I’m not sure what’s happening.

I’ve hit the account activation reset switch, so log out and log back in and see if that fixes it.

Thanks!

Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Maybe you’re not in the right view? Check the URL of the page: if it doesn’t have “readpost” in the URL, you might be looking at the thread view, which does indeed not provide access to editing tools — since of course only posts are editable, not threads.

If you’re in thread view, one easy way to get to “post” view is to hit the “Reply” button on your post, and you should then be able to see the edit button.

If that doesn’t work, can you include a link to the post? That might help us see if there’s some structural issue we need to look at.

Thanks!

Tim

[Tim Wilson]

[Walter Soyka] “Don’t you think FCPX appeals to a bigger “everyone” than FCP Legend ever could?”

Yes, and so does Apple. 🙂 After all, the number Apple stated for Legend was only a bit over 2 million units over its entire life. FCPX passed that number relatively quickly, although I remain on the record absolutely stupefied that it hasn’t blown that number apart.

THAT’s the story to me, how much more slowly, and how little, it has grown Apple’s footprint than I’d have imagined. My optimism for Apple’s success with X has been thoroughly debunked in these pages.

Thanks. LOL

(Then there’s the whole other Hollywood-specific conversation about how X reduced Apple’s footprint — for reasons that in some cases have nothing to do with anything, no doubt, no doubt, PLUS DINOSAURS

…but Walter, that does indicate the flip side of what has happened in actual practice. We should be well past the point that any rational X-naysayers have to concede that X is in fact up to any of Hollywood’s tasks, but we should likewise be past the point that any rational X-philes have to concede that there simply aren’t as many flags being waved as there were in the early days of Legend.

Is that solely because Apple is obviously not investing the same energy into telling these “In Action” stories as they used to — and they’re clearly not — or because X does in fact, by Apple’s specific, careful, considered, and well-executed plan intentionally appeal to less of each and every group of “everyone” than the appeal of Legend?

Can we at least, rational nay- and yay-sayers alike, agree on that? That Apple isn’t trying to reach “everyone” in ways that it did just 5 years ago? They’ve said so often enough that it seems a little disrespectful to insist that they are.

Sticking with Legacy and the meaning of the word “everyone” though, 2 million was still a fraction of Premiere’s numbers at the time iirc (5 million? one of you lads can surely correct me), and I know for a fact that when Avid bought Pinnacle in 2005, there were 10 million users of Pinnacle Studio.

There is of course the matter of comparing apples to apples, pun intended, and I don’t think that $99 consumer software and $995 (or more) professional software have anything to do with each other….and after all, the #1 consumer video editing platform these days is Vine…but the legend of Legend appealing to “everyone,” even if you limit “everyone” to “video pros with a Mac,” is just that. A legend. NOT a legacy. It never happened. 2 million copies is a lot, but not even enough for an unambiguous plurality.

I know we’re just chitting and chatting, but in order for this kind of statement to be true, you’d have to actually change the meaning of the word “everyone” to be “well, not actually EVERYONE” — which is kind of the opposite of what it actually means. I’m as hyperbolic as anyone you’ve ever met, but once language crosses into “I mean the opposite of what I’m saying,” we probably need better language.

Still, like Jeremy, I’m a little amused that we can reductively paraphrase the thread’s opening gambit as “at least X is RELIABLE crap,” which is inevitably going to spin off discussions of “Reliable or Not: The Debate” AND “Crap or Not: The Debate” for both Premiere Pro and X simultaneously. I’m impressed. LOL

[Tim Wilson]

We have a “COWmunications” forum, aka, “Letters to the COW Team,” as well as a Contact Us link in the top right of every page.

The COW originally had no editing of posts before we introduced it a couple of years ago. Our first implementation was to make posts editable until they were replied to, at which point they became locked.

We more recently experimented with allowing unlimited editing. This has not turned out well at all. Threads have become mangled — for example, as one poster quotes a post that no longer contains that quote, or rather than answering a question in a reply, going back to rewrite the original…which also meant that the person with a problem never knew that their problem had been answered, because it was addressed in an EDIT to a post, rather than in a new post! What a mess.

Those are two kinds of examples. There are dozens of kinds of examples, multiplied across 300,000 members, and over 3 million posts. The implications for things like searchability also became overwhelming. So, because of rampant abuse, we’ve gone back to our first implementation, that a post is editable until it has been replied to.

As for the other matters, I’ll look into those. You should have consistent access to everything of course, and forum alert emails should be coming through smoothly. I appreciate your letting us know.

And John, I don’t have any recent emails from you, sorry! 🙁

Best,

Tim Wilson
Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Hi Kalle,

You should definitely be seeing an Edit button after you make a post. Can you try logging out and logging back in first, then make a test post in the Test Post forum forum to see if it’s still missing.

Thanks,
Tim