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Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

pitivi.org

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Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#51

Post by shakna »

coderdd wrote: post #30
Georgelemental wrote: post #8

See also Kdenlive ( https://kdenlive.org/en/ ). I generally stick with the GTK/GNOME ecosystem but for my (admittedly quite limited) video editing needs I've found Kdenlive to be easier to figure out.

Not sure I used Piviti, but used Shortcut, Openshot and Kdenlive. Kdenlive wins hands-down in stability and least amount of UI glitches. (I recall that these interestingly share the same video editing backend, just the integration is different?)

> (I recall that these interestingly share the same video editing backend, just the integration is different?)

Last time I looked, they were all using MLT [0] for the backend.

[0] https://www.mltframework.org/

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#52

Post by TuringTest »

macco wrote: post #41
randomsearch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-standard and objectively poor positioning of the buttons is fascinating. What was the logic behind this? It seems to me that designers are much less likely to give their time for free to a software project than programmers. Is that why OSS suffers from problems like this? A junior UI designer would never make these kinds of decisions. I can understand why designers wouldn’t work for free. What I don’t underst…

The positioning is not objectively wrong. Where do you get this from? Did you make tests with people who never used a PC before? Who are not biased? Or is this your opinion, which would be subjectively by definition. UI usage is mostly learned. Just to be clear, I don't think GTK is the perfect UI system. In my opinion, there is none.

Why should tests be done with people who never used a PC before? User expectations are a large part of usability.

Moreover, which users who never used a PC before would be using Gnome?

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#53

Post by mattkevan »

randomsearch wrote: post #20
n3storm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"nothing" may be too much. But if very basic components like file choose and file save dialog are incredibly painful to be used with buttons scattered through all window corners (fitts law anyone?) then "nothing" starts resounding in your mind. https://python-gtk-3-tutorial.readthedocs.io/en/latest/_imag... You can find another control at bottom left to choose file codification or whatever. Font select dialog: https:…

The non-standard and objectively poor positioning of the buttons is fascinating. What was the logic behind this? It seems to me that designers are much less likely to give their time for free to a software project than programmers. Is that why OSS suffers from problems like this? A junior UI designer would never make these kinds of decisions. I can understand why designers wouldn’t work for free. What I don’t underst…

Without strong leadership and buy-in from everyone involved, it's very hard for design or UX to be involved in open source projects in a meaningful way.

Implementing a design requires discipline and a shared vision, which is often against the bazaar-like nature of open source projects. Everyone's working on their own particular piece and can't agree about anything at all – just look at the internecine battles that are still going on about which init system to use.

In my experience, any attempt at making an interface better, even if it's proven with data and testing, results in extreme pushback about dumbing down. The attitude seems to be that making software accessible is not 'real computing' and therefore should be fought tooth and nail.

Designers often don't work on open source projects not because they don't work for free, but because it's a miserable experience.

Having said that, good counter-examples to this are the recent Blender redesign, where significant effort has been put into making the software more consistent and easier to use, and the Elementary distro where one of the goals is to create a good user experience.

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#54

Post by Crazyontap »

A little OT but why do flatpaks take so much size? I have a small partition for linux and last time I ran out of disk space it was because these flatpaks were taking nearly 1GB for simple programs that I reckon should not be more than 10MB executables.

Is this like iTunes on windows where it downloads the whole apple operating system to run the software? I know disk space is cheap but it's not always the case especially with these new laptops with fixed and small nvme drives.

edit: just found out this too requires 2.4GB disk space :/

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#55

Post by therein »

Crazyontap wrote: post #54

A little OT but why do flatpaks take so much size? I have a small partition for linux and last time I ran out of disk space it was because these flatpaks were taking nearly 1GB for simple programs that I reckon should not be more than 10MB executables. Is this like iTunes on windows where it downloads the whole apple operating system to run the software? I know disk space is cheap but it's not always the case especia…

Yes, that's exactly how they work. They bring a whole userspace/rootfs with themselves so to speak.

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#56

Post by mattkevan »

macco wrote: post #41
randomsearch wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non-standard and objectively poor positioning of the buttons is fascinating. What was the logic behind this? It seems to me that designers are much less likely to give their time for free to a software project than programmers. Is that why OSS suffers from problems like this? A junior UI designer would never make these kinds of decisions. I can understand why designers wouldn’t work for free. What I don’t underst…

The positioning is not objectively wrong. Where do you get this from? Did you make tests with people who never used a PC before? Who are not biased? Or is this your opinion, which would be subjectively by definition. UI usage is mostly learned. Just to be clear, I don't think GTK is the perfect UI system. In my opinion, there is none.

UI usage is mostly learned, you're right. All UIs are fairly arbitrary, helping users understand the current state of their computer and perform actions, by using metaphors to help construct a mental model of what's happening.

But we need to be aware of those learned habits, metaphors and conventions and build those affordances into our own designs if we want people to use our software efficiently.

A convention often used in modals and other popup windows is to put the close icon in the top right. So putting the confirm button there could cause a user to click it wanting to close the window and confirm a destructive action instead.

Another convention is to put the confirm/cancel buttons at the bottom of a dialogue window. Buttons like those don't normally go in the title/toolbar, and putting them there goes against the top-down, left-to-right way we read things.

Putting things in non-conventional places is not 'wrong' per se, but adds extra friction to every interaction.

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#57

Post by bachmeier »

modo_mario wrote: post #49
RedComet wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beautiful thing about open source is that a website doesn't mention the platforms it supports? Strange view.

He was hinting that the original commenter could push for the change he wants to see himself and linked the page that would have to be edited.

That's also strange. Clearly the comment was coming from someone not familiar with the project. Responding "I just submitted the change, here's a link" would have been more reasonable.

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#58

Post by viraptor »

coderdd wrote: post #30
Georgelemental wrote: post #8

See also Kdenlive ( https://kdenlive.org/en/ ). I generally stick with the GTK/GNOME ecosystem but for my (admittedly quite limited) video editing needs I've found Kdenlive to be easier to figure out.

Not sure I used Piviti, but used Shortcut, Openshot and Kdenlive. Kdenlive wins hands-down in stability and least amount of UI glitches. (I recall that these interestingly share the same video editing backend, just the integration is different?)

For me Shotcut won in usability. Openshot often had no tools for what I wanted, and Kdenlive was just so clunky with the interface I wanted to throw my laptop away and pay someone else finish the project. Shotcut is by no means perfect and for example simple masking ends requiring sliders in the plug-in to adjust the rectangle size on the display... but it still won.

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#59

Post by viraptor »

andybak wrote: post #39

My problem is that I don't need this right now but I will want it at some point in the not too distant future. Finding it at that point is fairly tricky. I have too many bookmarks. Google results for"free video editor" are polluted with junk. And the name - "Pitivi" is not something I will ever remember. I still can't remember the name of the "online drawing app" that I use quite a lot!

https://alternativeto.net/browse/search/?q=Video%20editing is my go to most of the time. It's not perfect in classification and it has some trash. But overall I find good suggestions.

Re: Pitivi, a free and open source video editor for Linux

#60

Post by Paianni »

timonoko wrote: post #33

You just cannot beat Cinelerra. Occasionally I try to use some heavily advertised one (like Kdenlive or Pitivi) but immediately realize you cannot "Generate Keyframes While Tweaking". This is essential. Cinelerra has been splitted to two^H^Hthree but only Cinelerra CG seem to work. Those who remember old-time Cinelerra can be amazed with the render-list of 20, which all seem to work. In the olden golden times you jus…

Maybe you mastered it better than me but I always found Cinelerra-CV a bit clunky, especially if I was dealing with oddball formats (HDV) that I didn't understand. Maybe I would get the hang of it now but I've kinda moved on.
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