GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 585738
Difference between mounted videos / different layers
Last modified: 2010-02-11 16:38:58 UTC
As a new user, I fail to see the difference between this cases: -When two videos overlap, and video 1 appears on top of video 2. -When two videos overlap, and video 2 appears on top of video 1. -When the two videos are in different layers. Do these affect the resulting video? Is there a difference between them? What's the use of moving a video to a different layer, instead of leaving it in the same? I think that Pitivi would be much easier to use if the answer to these questions was somehow more evident just by seeing the interface (e.g. with the use of tooltips). Other information:
Created attachment 136561 [details] case 1
Created attachment 136562 [details] case 2
Created attachment 136563 [details] case 3
I fail to understand the problem you're describing... layers are layers, as described in the manual (I think... if it's not, it should be) and as other layer-enabled applications (ex: gimp, inkscape) behave... I somehow expect users to understand the concept of layers to use them.
this is not in the 0.13.3 manual, new users of GIMP find the concepts of layers difficult to understand. I think we need to explain it too.
It's actually briefly documented in the "Moving clips along the timeline" section on page 13 of the manual... which may indeed be insufficient. I'm open to concrete suggestions of what to put in there though, because I'm too geeky to explain layers other than "well... it's layers. Stuff on top takes priority" :)
well this would need pictures but this might work, it borrows from what I remember of the GIMPs analogy for layers. It is easier to think of layers in terms of still images painted on glass. with several pieces of glass stacked on top of each other, each of these pieces of glass is a layer. if the top piece of glass is completely painted over, none of the pieces of glass underneath will be visible. If on the other hand you only paint over a portion of a piece of glass, you will be able to see what is underneath the non-painted parts. Opacity (how solid 'opaque' things are) Each layer has its own transparency, to continue the paint on glass metaphor: paint if thin enough can be seen through and depending on how much paint applied the amount you can see though varies.
So it's a documentation issue then (I don't see what could be done in pitivi's UI at the moment to make it easier than it is). Assigning it to myself. I'll look at how GIMP documented it (http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/gimp-image-combining.html#gimp-concepts-layers), try to come up with something that makes things clear (Stephen's proposal is a good start).
Looking at what the GIMP documentation team has written is a problem if the document licenses aren't compatible. That is why I tried to recall the analogy from memory :S "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation" http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/legal.html
Well I'm not going to copy them, I think they way they explain some concepts are not applicable to us or just plain suck :) I also plan to make a diagram/illustration to make everything crystal-clear.
This is now documented in the manual. David, could you take a look at http://www.pitivi.org/manual/development-version/ ? It has a dedicated "Understanding layers" section.