[Simon Ubsdell]

[Bill Davis] “Uh… as to this specifically, the blue box, denotes that the field has becomes “active” and a mouse or trackpad scroll up or down increments or diminishes the value smoothly. “

No, Bill, sorry. It’s not that I am in any doubt as to what the blue box “does”.

If you go back and read my original comment, it is to do with the confusion in its implementation – and the sheer inelegance of it to boot.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

I’m trying hard and I’d like nothing better than to say that I see what you mean, but I can’t see any practical application for this that would justify the prima facie confusion.

Call me old school but for me confusion has no place in effective UI design.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Gregor Queck] “° the input goes to the blue rectangle, no matter what field you just changed by mouse/trackpad.”

This seems to me to be the very essence of bad design.

Which is why I called attention to it in the first place.

But if it makes sense to you, I will scrub it from my list.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Brett Sherman] “The one thing I’m not sure about is whether there is a hit on performance when you use this type of cloning. “

I just ran a test to answer this question – at least in part. One of the factors you need to consider in terms of performance is how large the resulting XML is going to be.

I created a project with all the 25 shapes in the Motion library added to a dropdown rig.

The Clone method gives you a project size of 566KB.

The Opacity method gives you a project size of 703KB.

So you can clearly see the benefit of this method.

I built a massive lens flare template, one of the largest things I’ve ever built in Motion, and I was using this Clone method very liberally to swap out the hundreds of different image options. Not only is it rock solid but it’s always very performant.

I can also attest to the reliability of this method given that it’s built into a few of the templates Rob and I have sold commercially over a number of years – all without a single problem.

I will just say that Clones, when used injudiciously, can cause performance problems, but that is quite a different question.

You seem to be asking something hat is slightly at a tangent to this, and, without knowing the exact details of your project, I would say that there is an advantage to breaking a template up into separate Motion projects over bundling everything into one, again because the holy grail is keeping the XML size down wherever possible. But this only really applies if your project is very complex …

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Gregor Queck] “The blue field has the purpose of directing keyboard input. Even if you scrub some other field your keyboard input is directed to the blue rectangle and you know it since it’s highlighted. “

I’m sorry but this makes no sense at all to me. You’\re going to have to explain in more detail.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

You identified so many issues so impressively well that I momentarily forgot that you’d missed some.

One of these is something you can’t see from the original screen grab, but which I’ve highlighted here:

If you click in a number field, an ugly, clunky blue rectangle appears, which remains even when you move the slider or scrub the number field for a different parameter. There is of course no logic to this and I would suggest there is no good reason for the rectangle highlighter at all. Just more random “design” seemingly hurled at the UI without thought or oversight.

You also rightly point out very serious issues with the layout. I would add these points.

If you are going to do away with the concept of a “ruler” to define both the default position and the end stops of the slider, why would you make the slider range colour (a very dark grey on a very dark grey) virtually impossible to read?

And then why would you overlook one of the easiest ways of making the left-hand end stop more obvious, namely the justification of the legends? The left justification of the legends leaves a random gaping space before the left end stop (arbitrarily dictated by the length of the word or words) which is not only ugly but also deeply unhelpful.

A very simple solution would have been to right-justify the legends, which would have given a very clear reference point for the left end stop.

One of the nasty limitations of the FCP X Inspector is that it is fixed width, so you can’t open out the panel to create wider sliders with finer granularity. And this fixed width is very narrow indeed.

That being the case, the design of the sliders here does everything it can to minimise the length of travel – an ultimate act of perversity.

My rough calculations on a 1920×1200 monitor tell me that 133 pixels are given over to the legends (and left hand margin); there are 93 pixels for the keyframe functions and right hand margin/scrollbar, 77 pixels for the number fields, and a mere 92 pixels for the sliders themselves.

This is almost unimaginably stupid. Less than 25% of the width of the panel is actually dedicated to the sliders!

—

If they can’t be bothered to sweat the small stuff … well, you fill in the rest.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

Great write-up, thanks, Tim.

It was a really exciting presentation with so much good stuff to absorb.

Genuinely inspiring. And indeed thought-provoking.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Shawn Miller] “Thanks for bringing this up Simon, you and Walter made this a really fun thread.”

Thanks to you, too. It has indeed been fun. And interesting.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Walter Soyka] “We should play this game with Premiere sometime, too…”

Yes, indeed.

None of this stuff is perfect and it’s certainly not only Apple that gets it wrong.

But at least Adobe don’t throw everything at a dramatic UI overhaul and mess up quite as badly as this.

…

I know there are going to be a lot of people reading this who are thinking it’s all completely irrelevant, but I’m not sure they’re right.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki

[Simon Ubsdell]

Ah, now you see, that is what I was hoping for.

For Walter to come swinging by and not only see everything that I see, but plenty else besides, and to articulate it with such sublime clarity.

I can but salute you, sir.

Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki