There are multiple different terms for “a process which blends one media clip to another”. Some Non-Linear-Editors (NLE) call them Transitions, some call them Dissolves, some call them Fades. Nobody - except for KDEnlive - calls them Mixes. Also, it is not worth mentioning that they are “Same Track Transitions”, because that is the norm. Dual track transitions being the exception in the editing world.
I think it would be helpful if KDEnlive would be consistent with the terminology thats used in other NLE. It doesnt really matter if you choose the term Dissolve or Transition. Both are used interchangeably, but the term “Mix” puts people that have worked with video tools on a wrong track. A mix in the AV business is usually the thing that comes out of the audio mixing process, so the final product of an audio mastering session.
i cannot add links to this post but these remarks especially refer to a page of the documentation which explains what “Mixes” are in KDEnlive and how they can be used.
And that’s ok. Non linear editing is still an art in its infancy - it still carries a lot of baggage from the days of flatbed editing, and many professional editors learned their craft, or even still practice it, on those devices. Learning the domain specific jargon is normal for learning any new field or tool.
And that’s ok too.
Whose norm? And who says it’s a good one for a post-Steenbeck era to remain attached to?
They are the norm for flatbed linear editors. They are introduced as “a simple easy to learn workflow for beginners” in things like the DR beginners guide.
Are they an optimal workflow? Maybe for some tasks, or if you have a lifetime of muscle memory built around flatbed editing. But in the history of kdenlive, they are an afterthought, a recent addition, and something that needed terminology to distinguish them from compositions and transitions, which were always things that happened between tracks, never on the same one.
Just because other editors put multi-track mixes in the “they are for advanced users, don’t you worry your pretty head about those” box doesn’t make MLT and kdenlive wrong to invert that and expose the full power of how it really works under the hood as the default, with a “simpler mode” overlayed on that for people who do only need or want Simple.
Same-track mixes are definitely not something that can replace the full power of multi-track compositions. So even if they are The Norm for some today, it’s hard to imagine them remaining that way as workstations get more powerful, displays get more usable real estate, advanced tooling gets more common, and editors get more skillful.
Maybe “mix” isn’t the best possible word - but it’s good enough as a context-dependent shorthand for “same-track transitions”, and a pretty easy word to learn. So I’m not sure what you think changing that would improve so vastly that it’s worth the chaos and confusion which it would cause to all the existing users and all the existing documentation?
New users are always going to need some amount of onboarding - and I wouldn’t have picked this as the thing they might somehow get stuck on …
I don’t use any other editors, so I wouldn’t know about them, but I do know that, independent of any specific software, these terms are not synonymous. Dissolves and fades are two means to achieve a transition. They are closely related, but not the same.
Maybe the other editors should change if they’re doing it wrong? I mean, maybe it’s not best to follow a crowd heading down a bad path?
Now I feel like playing lemmings. I bet there’s a FOSS Lemmings clone out there. I’m gonna go find it.
I think these two comments outline the problem of this type of projects. Thinking that KDEnlive is in a position to coin new terms for technical processes that are named consistently between all major NLE for decades, borders on delusional thinking. Especially if these NLE (Media Composer, Premiere, Resolve) have a 99% market share.
I wonder what exactly KDEnlive as a project will gain by this type of attitude, thinking it has more say in the editing craft than the market leaders? This is the type off arrogance that Apple had with FCPx and I don’t think it worked out for them. It catapulted them from one of the top used NLE (FCP7) to one of the least used NLE (FCPx) in just a few months. Precisely because they thought they are genius enough to re-invent the wheel.
Chances are very high that someone who tries KDEnlive has prior experience in one of the top 3 editing tools and I don’t think a lot of people will perceive something like the term “Mixes” as the eye opening intuitively understandable term when it comes to transitions.
Why people even take the time to write lengthy arguments for keeping a misleading term like that is beyond me.
I think this shows that there are others who use Kdenlive, like it a lot, and are ok with the terms. And some have prior experience with other NLEs.
Your points have resonated with the community and the dev team. Change doesn’t happen overnight but I see good chances there will be adjustments based on the good community feedback (and not just for this topic).
Let’s just clear something up - is your objective that KDE do it the objectively correct way, or the currently popular way with disregard for correct use of technical terminology?
Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere and Davinci Resolve are the predominantly used editing tools.
There is no “correct” way when it comes to language. If the majority of people used the word “flanzenpamzen” for a transition, then that would be the term to use. Right now it is the word “Transition” though. But for what it’s worth: “Mix” is definitely not the correct term for a Transition.
So your objective here is popularity since you think that common usage determines meaning… I can discuss it in that way.
“flanzenpamzen” is not a word… When we get back to the base it’s coming off the board.
The confusion you’re experiencing arises because you’re basing your impression of common usage of terminology, on your limited observation of a few years of NLE, rather than being aware of the thousands (or even tens of thousands in a few cases like “track”) of years of established meaning which is in use to this day across all domains in human technology and in the broader discipline of modern engineering.
For you to resolve this problem, you will need to recognise that the issue is not that KDE fails to adhere to common usage, but that your impression of what is common, is inaccurate. You’ve been misled. Nobody will hold that against you… I mean… unless you start calling them delusional because they tried to help to educate you…
Very interesting discussion but I don’t think it’s leading anywhere.
Maybe you could outline what exactly you are trying to express: you think that “Mix” is a great word for what all other editing tools call a “Transition”. Describing the process of blending two clips. And it should stay as the term in the GUI and in the Docs of KDEnlive, even though anyone coming from the market leading editing tools will have a hard time finding it.
Because YOU (and a user named Ron) think it’s a fitting word and because you got used to it. Does that sum it up roughly?
But it’s good to be precise, I agree: “Transition” is the umbrella term, the rest is a question of GUI logic. So it needs to be decided if the “Mix” button should better be renamed “Transition” or “Dissolve”, depending on what it will do in the future. Personally I think “Transition” makes more sense if KDEnlive will follow Mediacomposer UX where this button opens a dialog, allowing you to override the default transition parameters like length, starting point and type of transition (defaulting to cross dissolve).
Wow, you really are going to beat this dead horse and lash out at anyone who doesn’t share your sense of crisis, aren’t you …
Ok then, if you really want to know what A User Named Ron thinks (as opposed to just adding a lazy rhetorical device to your already numerous deployments of logical fallacies) about your ongoing rantings on this subject:
I think your ego got wildly bent out of shape after your misguided belief that “Your pitiful documentation is no match for my 30 years of Enormous Experience” blew up in your face and you embarrassingly failed to be able to figure out even the simplest and most simply explained tasks with a new tool. And you came here on the warpath looking for the satisfaction of other people saying “Yeah man, it’s not just you, that bit me too!” …
Except nobody did. It really is just you. And rather than adding “next time I should at least skim the manual” to your Enormous Experience - now you’re doubling down and picking fights with the people who tried to explain things to you.
So if you genuinely want to contribute something good, then please, just Stop That, go do a bit of learning about how things currently are, how they got to be that way, and why changing that This Very Instant isn’t even close to being the most pressing problem on the roadmap.
It seems the developers already tried to explain that to you, and you, what, then came here to try and pile peer pressure on to them that way? You’re not telling them anything they don’t already know. Which you would also know if you’d spent half the energy you’ve wasted here on R’ing TFM.
Here’s a pointer to get you started:
And here’s an older version of that page from before Same Track Transitions themselves even got onto the the active task list:
Notice how nothing you’ve said comes as a surprise to those people from the past who wrote that explainer …
We all know the world is a messy place, and this corner of that is no different. Anyone who has been in the software game for any appreciable amount of time all too well knows xkcd: Standards
You’re huffing and puffing like this is some sort of world ending showstopper of a problem. But the simple fact is, that in the 3+ years since same track transitions were added, you’re the first to rant wildly that the biggest problem with them is, wait for it, The Name!!
So really, take a deep breath, give your ego’s bruises some time to heal and your embarrassment at (unsurprisingly) failing to use new tool without spending any time to learn about it time to fade … And then if you’re still here, and you start to see the real problems that crop up in everyday use beyond OMG This Different Thing Is Different, maybe you’ll have something actually worthwhile and welcome to contribute.
I definitely don’t think I am KDEnlives savior
Yeah, right now I have a long list of synonyms for what you are being, and that isn’t one of them. Naming me in strawman arguments and false dichotomies certainly isn’t the way to make that list shorter or include words that cast you in a better light.
If you want to achieve more than just pointless venting you’re going to have to find a much calmer, more flexible, and more patient voice.
It can’t be “dissolve” because it might use some other transition effect. It can’t be “transition” because that’s used to describe what you do between clips on two tracks which remain two clips on two tracks. It would be better not to rename it to either of those. I don’t see any reason to rename it, at all. ‘Because a few others are doing it wrong and I’m used to that’ isn’t one.
A “mix” in kdenlive creates what we traditionally call a “mix” (imagine that!) where there is a single resulting signal from multiple source signals, and that’s the point of this feature, it takes two clips that can’t exist separately on the same place on the same track at the same time, “mixes” them together into a third clip, so that one clip can go on the one place on the one track at the one time. “Mix” is a fine word to use here.
I feel like this bears repeating, since you’ve demonstrated on a few occasions that this is evading you:
two clips can’t exist separately in the same place on the same track at the same time
It’s logically impossible, and in many of the uses of the term, it’s physically impossible. For analogy:
two trains can’t exist separately in the same place on the same track at the same time
two sliding window panes can’t exist separately in the same place on the same track at the same time
the left and right halves of a tape can’t exist separately on one half of a tape
Perhaps considering these analogies to better understand the meaning of ‘track’ may help you understand why kdenlive doesn’t, and shouldn’t, call a “mix” a “transition”.
These terms and their meanings stem from before kdenlive, before resolve, before NLE, before computers, before electronics, before you and before me and before a user named Ron. kdenlive is using them accordingly, so there’s no cause for it to change.
I get it. kdenlive isn’t what you expected. And you may well not be alone in that. Maybe that’s a real problem. But instead of “well that is kdenlive’s fault and kdenlive should change”, you should understand by now that kdenlive is doing things correctly, so you need some other solution.
Personally, I’d always been a bit ambivalent about the word “mix” for this - I was very glad of the choice not to simply overload Transition for two very different things, and it seemed ok as a nice concise nickname for Same track transitions, even if for me it didn’t have that instant feel of being the first word I might have picked for it and exactly fitting like the most perfect words can be …
But that said - if the option to change it was on the table and up for A Vote right now, I’m not sure I can think of a better argument for another word than what you just made for this one.
All I’d been saying was that this was a long, long, way from being on even the long list of Most Pressing Problems To Solve - even if it wasn’t ideal.
But now you’ve raised the bar for how perfect any replacement word would need to be to really be a better fit than this one. Let alone to be worth the pain and confusion that comes with just renaming things for renaming sake.
With respect to Ron, we have never met, we’re no more community than you and I are. I’m very new around here, I generally don’t do social media because of … well, because of threads like this. Try to be nice to people and solve a person’s problems and look what happens…
“toxic” and “self absorbed”. Interesting choice of terms from a guy who’s trying to redefine the engineering lexicon single-handedly by tripling down on insulting strangers on the internet on NYE.
No, there’s no cause for anger, there. Must be Ron’s “issues”. Yeh. That must be it. Now I have anger issues, too. Thanks a lot, Ron.
Summary
Ron, that was a joke. You’re fine mate.
I hate that I have to put this disclaimer here because internet. Kinda ruins the joke. I blame you, Good one, Ron.
I keep warning people Don’t Be Like Me. It’s absolutely At Your Own Risk if you don’t listen!
NYE was yesterday for me - and I spent it with friends shooting footage of sea dragons that I’m editing up tonight, peering in here occasionally because there’s only so much coffee you can drink while waiting for compute jobs to complete…
Being actually toxic to angry people does kind of sound like a neat Life Goal / New Resolution to distract me from the angst of the next few months of getting the date wrong again every time I have to write it down - but it kind of loses something in the choice of words and implementation if their repetitive ranting Just Won’t Die … Might have to get a I Suck At Being Toxic Too shirt.
This did make me curious how other editors do things. I went looking for how to do transitions in davinci, avid and adobe. Couldn’t find much on avid, as for the others: Yeh, I can definitely see why someone coming from this software might be confused by kdenlive’s terminology.
It seems like adobe reinvented the wheeltrack (heh) making a new thing but keeping the same name even though it logically conflicts with their new thing, and resolve copied them? idk. Maybe it was the other way around. My care factor is dwindling and the more I read into this to double-check myself the more comfortable I become both with kdenlive’s approach and my initial assessment of it. OP’s concern for ease of use for users coming from that software, I don’t know the answer, but following these guys ain’t it.
Speaking of my first reply pingus is a fun FOSS lemmings-alike. There are several clones if you’re after the nostalgia as well as the gameplay.
I mean, maybe it’s not best to follow a crowd heading down a bad path?
