Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Tim Wilson] “So here’s my question to you all: what do you WANT Apple to do?”
First of all, they need to round up those responsible for “designing” the UIs for FCP X 10.3 and Motion 5.3 and they need to put them to work on tasks better suited to their talents, like maybe mopping the floors.
Spot the schoolboy design errors here. You should be able to see at least five. Experts will be able to spot many more.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
But that doesn’t alter the fact that Apple should have had the basic common sense to figure it out for you.
But they don’t.
Not that they’re alone here.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[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 -
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 -
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 -
[Gabriel Spaulding] “If Apple reinvents this operation, adds some functionality to it …”
Out of interest, what is the unique thing that you are suggesting that Apple has “added” here?
I confess I’m not seeing it.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Jeff Markgraf] “Not that it really matters.”
I agree that it doesn’t really matter in the great scheme of things. But I think what does matter is what it tells us about the mentality of the people designing this stuff.
There’s a whole lot of lazy thinking that we could well do without.
When we hear that such and such a piece of software represents the ne plus ultra of design, we really need to think about the hundreds of small things that are fundamentally suboptimal in so many different ways.
Shane is right to be irritated by the Blade concept.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Shane Ross] “Even Avid, which was DESIGNED around film and to make film editors comfortable with computer editing didn’t call it BLADE.”
Indeed.
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.
Not sure who started it but someone needs to stop it!
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
[Shane Ross] “hat might the modern name for this action be called? “
In Media Composer it’s called “Add Edit” and has been since time immemorial.
And a much better name it is too.
And it’s not a freakin’ mode! Why do developers think that’s a good idea? It’s a terrible, terrible idea.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki -
If you use the Keyer in Lumetri Color, you should be abel to get a pretty decent key off the water to isolate it and make it whatever blue you fancy without affecting the character.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo productions
hawaiki
