[Kdenlive-devel] Inpoints and outpoints commited

[Jason Wood]

Hi people.

Just managed to get this committed before the end of the weekend :-)

Inpoints and outpoints now are reasonably funcional - you can move them with 
the mouse on the clip monitor/workspace monitor (i'll come back to that in a 
minute), or seek around the clip and use the 'I' and 'O' keys to set the 
inpoints and outpoints. Then, drag the clip by it's image to the timeline, 
and the clip will appear.

For the moment. there is no way to modify a clip on the timeline via the clip 
monitor - that functionality will follow soon, hopefully. In other words, if 
you have a clip on the timeline, you still have to resize it on the timeline, 
or you have to click it so it appears in the clip monitor, move the 
inpoints/outpoints to where you want them, drag the clip to the timeline 
(creating a second copy), and then delete the original - but that's not a 
very practical way to do it!

Now onto something that I'm giving myself a pat on the back for - in the 
process of getting drag 'n' drop working on the clip monitor, I have added 
drag 'n' drop to the workspace monitor as well.

Essentially, you can set the in/outpoints on the workspace monitor and 'drag' 
it to the timeline. What you get is a Project Clip - a clip that is a 
composite of other clips. At the moment, this is of very little use, but it 
works which is proof that the underlying kdenlive architecture can support 
it.

The grand plan for Project Clips is to allow the user to create them at will, 
by selecting clips on the timeline and selecting "make composite clip" from a 
context menu. There will also be a "decompose composite clip" option to go 
with it.

There are two main uses for project clips :

1. Simplification of the timeline.

Once you have composed part of your project, it is likely that you won't touch 
it again until you are ready to 'tweak' it. And sometime, you put the middle 
of your project together before the beginning, or have a section that you 
like but don't know where to put it... Project Clips allow you to group clips 
together so they can be handled as a single clip, removing the need to 
group-select clips all the time, and avoiding the problem of accidentally 
moving clips around within it.

2. Templatisation

This is looking far-far-far into the future ;-) But an idea that came up when 
first discussing Kdenlive was the idea of templates - similar to template 
letters and memos for word processors, but for videos :-)

For example, let's say that you make a particular kind of edit a lot - perhaps 
it's wedding videos, or perhaps it's a music show. Now, each show will have 
different clips in it, but the overall format will be the same. For a music 
show, it might look like this :

* Pre-intro clip
* Intro Sequence
* Music Video
* Presenter Clip
* Music Video
* Presenter Clip
* Music Video
...
*Presenter Clip
* End credits.

As far as editing is concerned, some of these elements will change - the clips 
and videos used, for instance. But other elements will be the same - all 
videos might have a logo overlaid on them, and text for the first 10 seconds 
and last 10 seconds stating what the song is. The End credits may have 
scrolling text on them. And the fades/wipes that get you from one section of 
the show to the next will always be similar from show to show (as they are 
partly responsible for the 'look and feel' of the show).

So, the end idea of this is to be able to create a "Music Show" template, 
which would encapsulate all the bits that go into your music show formula. 
You would first create the template, using a mixture of normal clips and 
"placeholder" clips - one's that will be replaced with the real clips when 
the template is used. This would be done in exactly the same way that you 
normally edit a show.

Then, the template would become available as any other clip - the only 
difference being that it has 'slots' in it for you to add your own clips (no 
thoughts as to the interface for this yet). Add the clips to complete the 
template (which may themselves be other templates or composite clips), and 
your done! Or, you can decompose the result and tweak it until you are happy.

It's very distant future (version 3, or something like that ;-)) but i wanted 
to make clear exactly why I am so happy that the first step to getting there 
is complete.

Feel free to comment :-)

Cheers,
Jason

-- 
Jason Wood
Homepage : www.uchian.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk