Jay's Big List of Things I would like to see made Better

Hi All

I want to tell you that I am Happy that I decided to
learn and use FCP many years ago -

When I started using FCP I was the Only person I knew
using FCP and one of the Few people that even had a Mac

FCP has been By Far the Most Stable editing software that I have ever used-
I have had only Minor problems and Very Few of them -

I have never had a glitch in a project when printing to tape -
I am Super Glad that I decided to use your software to
make my Living with -

Thanks for doing such a Good job on FCP software
and making my life Much Easier--

Now to the things that I would like to see you make better-

Make the color for clip Marking in the browser Color The Name of the clip
and not color the Thumb nail picture -

Make the filter adjusting clicking triangles BIGGER -
its like trying to click on the Period on the end of this sentence .

Also put the More and Less triangles on Both sides of the adjustment controls-
there is no reason to have to be moving back and forth to Raise and lower
filter adjustments - Like in the Chroma keying filter -Ouch

I bet Many people do not know that you Can Click on the
miniature Triangles to make adjustments

Add some Brighter colors to the interface -Shades of Gray is so Last Century
and there is no reason not to make it more colorful -

Lots of Easily seen information can be Added by the use of color -

I have 2 Nice Color monitors that spend there time being shades of gray -

Make the timeline tracks so that they can be More easily be differentiated between
the tracks- with 8 or ten tracks open on the time line its hard to tell what track
is where- --make every other track shaded in color -

Or put Track Numbers on Both ends of the time line -

Make the Clip Name in the Viewer Easier to see and read-
I bet there is lots of people that dont even know that
the name of the clip is at the top of the viewer window because its so hard to see -
Grey background and Slightly darker gray letters is Really hard to read

Make a Floating Clip Board where you can drag clips to for
short term storage -

And make the clip Board so that you can drag a clip to it and
do things like making a Speed Changes --

As it is right now I have to drag the clip to a blank space at the
end of the time line to make a speed change -- Ouch -
wastes tons of time and is is a Hassel -

I also have to drag clips to the end of the time line for short term storage-
this strategy works OK but is a hassle if the clips need to be rendered ect-

Make the Render bar markings easier to see -
a little wider rinder lines would help alot -

Fix the Key Framing control windows -
They Jump All over when clicking on them -
The Zoom in adjustments are perty much useless too

I have been using FCP since FCP 2 and
this glitch has been the same -
Please Please fix it --

Make the Viewer timeline so it can be Zoomed in -
Like tou can do in the time line-

If your clip is longer than 10 minutes long -
is is hard to scroll and find things -

I know Many people that work with long clips -

Make it so Clips in the browser can be arranged in the Order I Want -
Not just by alphabetical order -

Let me drag them to any order I want and
have a button to switch back and forth
between layouts -Alphabetical order and My order -

Clips that edit together rarely have the same letter
at the begaining of there names-

Like- Small Boy Running - and - Dog Catching Frisbee-


Make a New Alternative Key Board -Short Cut Layout -
One that is more Logical --

The way it is arranged now - Many of the Heavily used commands
are done using the F keys - or 2 keys to make a cut or
2 keys to Zoom the time line in and out-

( I changed the Zoom in and out to
just the + - keys only - no modifier key -
Saves me tons of finger twisting )

There are Much better Key layouts -
and if you make a Second Standard layout
new people can learn it from the beginning-
and current Uses can use the Stock one that
they have learned - or switch back and forth easily -

Make it so you can Switch easily between the 2 standard layouts -

( I know I can map the key board now-
but this just causes problems because there is
No Standard New key lay out -
so every body has a Better but Different layouts ) -

Make a Floating Button Bar that I can drag
around on the Timeline-- close to where I am working
make it like how you can move the Tools Bar around-

OR make the Tool Bar so I can Add Buttons to it -
that would work too -

Make the buttons so that they can be colored with Brighter
and Easier to distinguished colors -
The orange and yellow and red look almost a like- Useless-

It would be nice if you made the buttons alittle BIGGER Also-
The are so small that the Icons on them are perty much useless-

Maybe make the Buttons Zoom like the Icon list in OSX -

One thing that would really make things better is
to make the section in the time where you Click
too Cancel All Selections bigger or Floating

As it is now I mostly have to click on a Empty space on a track to cancel
out of a selection-

The problem is that when Zooming In or Out
FCP centers on the selected Empty track- OucH

This wastes tons of time and is a real hassel --

Maybe put a Selection Cancel button on the Floating Button Bar -
that would be Cool -

Thanks for listening --Jay--

Quote
Jay begged:
Also put the More and Less triangles on Both sides of the adjustment controls-
there is no reason to have to be moving back and forth to Raise and lower
filter adjustments - Like in the Chroma keying filter -Ouch

I bet Many people do not know that you Can Click on the
miniature Triangles to make adjustments

Good ideas. It took me a long time to discover those microscopic adjustment triangles for incremental parameter adjustments. Having left and right next to each other would be an improvement, but the best way to handle this would be to enable up/down arrow adjustments, like in Photoshop. I like to keep my eyes glued to the canvas to see the immediate effect of my adjustments, and having to keep the mouse on a tiny triangle keeps pulling my eyes away. Using just arrow keys you can see and adjust less/more and home in on the setting that is just right.

I've always been surprised I've never seen anyone else bring this up.

Scott

Quote

Make it so Clips in the browser can be arranged in the Order I Want -
Not just by alphabetical order -

Let me drag them to any order I want and
have a button to switch back and forth
between layouts -Alphabetical order and My order -

Clips that edit together rarely have the same letter
at the begaining of there names-

Like- Small Boy Running - and - Dog Catching Frisbee-

This HAS been a feature of FCP since I can remember...

? Change your browser view to "View as [Small, Medium or Large] Icons"

? Arrange the clips you want, in the order that you want in Descending order VERTICALLY
(It only works vertically not horizontally)

? Highlight all the clips

? Drag them into the timeline

? Voilá



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

> Make it so Clips in the browser can be arranged in the Order I Want -
> Not just by alphabetical order -

I use prefices to shape this to my advantage.
For example, I'm doing a corporate reel with four categories right now, so my clips are named:

"AW JD Power 01" (AW for Awards)
"EV US Dealers Show 01" (EV for Events)

I find it silly when people name their clips by describing their shots or, even worse, evaluating them:

"ECU Billy jUmping great "
"Luv IT!!! C-U Valerie"

Aside from the fact that clip names like these are nightmarish in the file system, you can't distinguish between shots this way because all ECUs will then come together. Also, if you need to know if it's an ECU or C-U, just use Thumbnails or open the clip. Takes half a second. No need to waste valuable Clip Names to do this. To me, the only good way to organize clips is to use numbers and prefices:

"10-01-04"
"Reel 001 Clip 01"
"NY 2007 Benefit Concert Preshow 01A-01"

Put all the notes, descriptions, shot designations etc. you want in the Log Notes column, or start a Comments column. FCP gives you four of those on top of the Log Notes. If you want to organize according to these, then click on the column heading Log Notes, Master Comment 1 etc.


www.derekmok.com

Quote

One thing that would really make things better is
to make the section in the time where you Click
too Cancel All Selections bigger or Floating

As it is now I mostly have to click on a Empty space on a track to cancel
out of a selection-

The problem is that when Zooming In or Out
FCP centers on the selected Empty track- OucH

This wastes tons of time and is a real hassel --

? Press: Shift+Command (Apple Key)+A to deselect all clips

Or

? Click on the grey area above the video tracks (not the time bar) or below the audio.

There is no need to click on an empty track space.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Quote

Make a New Alternative Key Board -Short Cut Layout -
One that is more Logical --

The way it is arranged now - Many of the Heavily used commands
are done using the F keys - or 2 keys to make a cut or
2 keys to Zoom the time line in and out-

( I changed the Zoom in and out to
just the + - keys only - no modifier key -
Saves me tons of finger twisting )

There are Much better Key layouts -
and if you make a Second Standard layout
new people can learn it from the beginning-
and current Uses can use the Stock one that
they have learned - or switch back and forth easily -

Make it so you can Switch easily between the 2 standard layouts -

The whole point of being able to save and transfer your customised keyboard layout is just that. If you think your way is better then take your "Jay's Custom Keyboard Layout.fcmap" file on a USB memory stick or upload it to your website so you can take it to any other FCP suites you may use.

I personally prefer the FCP Keyboard layout as it is.

If you want to switch back and forth there are several ways to do this...

Can I just check that you read the manual before posting features that you want? It strikes me that several "features" that are requested have been in FCP since version 4 if not 3...

Anyway to set your quick Back/Forth keyboard layout:

Once you have customised your keyboard layout and saved it.

? Tools>Keyboard Layout>Your Saved Keyboard Layout

or add a button to your button bar...

? Tools>Button List>Keyboard Layout 1 (Keyboard Layout 2, Keyboard Layout 3, etc)

? Drag your button(s) the button bar and if you want - right(ctrl) click and change its colour for easy reference...


Oh and read the manual, FCP is one of THE most feature rich and customisable applications in the world, so if you want it to perform a certain way, check if you can set it up the way you want.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]