Multiple issues

[thennicke]

Recently I edited a 40 minute long video from a trip I did to Kyrgyzstan (link). This tested Flowblade to its limits in some cases and I decided to document all the major and minor issues I ran into while working.
It's not feasible for me to create new bugs for each of these so I figured I should just dump them here so you are at least aware of them all.

• Flowblade needs templates or save defaults for typewriter/titler etc.
• Ability to change generator length in "edit generator" is missing
• F2 should rename files in the browser
• Please save browser row width choice automatically (it resets on program restart)
• Ability to paste clips on non-V1 tracks; perhaps wherever the mouse is hovering, would be a big timesaver
• Shortcut configurability. The ones I particularly need are:
  • Set clip length (probably my most used command)
  • Undo (I want to use the one-handed and more efficient ctrl-shift-z rather than ctrl-y)
  • Select sync parent clip
  • Clear sync relation
  • Toggle mute/unmute audio
• Make the multitrim tool only change to clip tool when hovering over the edges -- it's annoying to find the exact centre in order to do a slip edit
• Generator clips should maintain their sync relationships after being edited and re-rendered
• After selecting a clip the option to resize shouldn't be available for the move tool - this prevents actually moving it when zoomed out too far
• Credit scroll generator is misspelled as "Creadit Scroll"
• No obvious way to delete old motion tracking data?
• Should be possible to apply motion tracking in middle of clip
• Flowblade needs the ability to add global filters (e.g. an audio high-pass on all content). The new version of Audacity is a really good example of what this can look like.
• Is there a way we can get Ladspa/LV2 plugins working with flowblade?
• Typing standards should be implemented in typewriter generator -- home and end should not move timeline, but cursor. Clipboard should also work.
• File>Export>Current frame exports frame with wrong aspect ratio
• Compositors should be automatically synced with origin clip; at the very least make it opt-out rather than opt-in
• Render dialogue should actually indicate when it can't keep rendering because the disk is out of space. I lost a day of rendering because of this.

Hope this feedback is helpful! Thanks for all the great work you do.

Edit: I believe this was all with Flowblade 2.18 (flatpak) on Fedora 41

[jliljebl]

Recently I edited a 40 minute long video from a trip I did to Kyrgyzstan (link). This tested Flowblade to its limits in some cases and I decided to document all the major and minor issues I ran into while working. It's not feasible for me to create new bugs for each of these so I figured I should just dump them here so you are at least aware of them all.

Yeah, there are quite a few of these so list is good.

Flowblade needs templates or save defaults for typewriter/titler etc.

Yes, we can add function so users can create new Generators from their own templates, maybe Load / Save Generator Data buttons similar to Titler in the Add Generator dialog. Done

Ability to change generator length in "edit generator" is missing

On timeline we have Create Cloned Generator... which allows for creating a cloned version with different length, but you want a button in the Edit panel area to change length, right? I think we could do that, but this will effectively create a new Generator and render it and place it on timeline. Generators are rendered media and there is no way around that.

F2 should rename files in the browser

F2 does seem to be common Rename keyboard shortcut so we can add that, but see below for more on shortcuts.

Please save browser row width choice automatically (it resets on program restart)

This one does not reproduce, it is persistent on my system, we will need to get back to this (this is the pop selection with 2- 7 Columns options?) Issue didn't reproduce on dev system, investigate later.

Ability to paste clips on non-V1 tracks; perhaps wherever the mouse is hovering, would be a big timesaver

Use the activity switches on on tracks column to decide the paste track, the ones that can be turned on and off and the topmost blue one is where pasted clips go.

Clips get inserted at playhead position. I must check the docs to make sure we have this there. I did see bug now when testing this, so some work will be done this any way.

Shortcut configurability. The ones I particularly need are:
Set clip length (probably my most used command)
Undo (I want to use the one-handed and more efficient ctrl-shift-z rather than ctrl-y)
Select sync parent clip
Clear sync relation
Toggle mute/unmute audio

I am going to start to move keyboard shortcuts to GTk4 type of code, so maybe I can use these to kickstart to process, but that would push them all out of this release cycle. Otherwise they seem reasonable and can be added.

Make the multitrim tool only change to clip tool when hovering over the edges -- it's annoying to find the exact centre in order to do a slip edit

This is probably a preference type of thing. We are now giving clip end trims much more active area, so if users find getting to Slip trims hard, we can either give Slip trim target wider area always or by preference, not sure which is better. Done

Generator clips should maintain their sync relationships after being edited and re-rendered

Yes, they should, this is a bug, will fix this.

After selecting a clip the option to resize shouldn't be available for the move tool - this prevents actually moving it when zoomed out too far

This should again be a preference I believe, I just zoom in if area is too small, but I can see that there would be other users like you who like to get full clip area available for initiating movement. Done

Credit scroll generator is misspelled as "Creadit Scroll"

So it seems. Will obviously fix. Done

No obvious way to delete old motion tracking data?

No, but we can add that. This is a bit tricky as I'm not super sure where the UX should be placed but maybe edit panel for "Create Edit Data" filter is the way to go. Done

Should be possible to apply motion tracking in middle of clip

This is unlikely to get fixed because of internal workings of Flowblade, MLT and OpenCV. Might be possible to fix at some later, but for now invisible cuts must be used.

Flowblade needs the ability to add global filters (e.g. an audio high-pass on all content). The new version of Audacity is a really good example of what this can look like.

I've been a bit hesitant on adding this feature due to the quite large UX design and coding investment required, but I'll check Audacity to see if I get some ideas on how to do this nicely. Don't see it in the next few releases though, but late -25 is possible if this seems doable.

Is there a way we can get Ladspa/LV2 plugins working with flowblade?

We have quite a lot of ladspa filters working with Flowblade already. I'll give a more through answer after giving this some more examination on the details of current situation.

Typing standards should be implemented in typewriter generator -- home and end should not move timeline, but cursor. Clipboard should also work.

Ok, Home/End should be easily fixable but don't know yet why clipboard isn't working out of the box with Gtk.TextArea . Issues didn't reproduce on dev system, investigate later.

File>Export>Current frame exports frame with wrong aspect ratio

Will check, I think I have worked with 1:1 aspect ratio mostly lately. It is possible that this could be a bit difficult to gewt quickly.

Compositors should be automatically synced with origin clip; at the very least make it opt-out rather than opt-in

This one I will need to get back on you later, not sure what is my opinion here.

Render dialogue should actually indicate when it can't keep rendering because the disk is out of space. I lost a day of rendering because of this.

I don't think there is a way to accurately know render sizes for all file types in advance. but we can maybe do some heuristic. That would have to be vary pessimistic and users probably should not trust this to always to be able to give the warnings when needed, so I'm not sure if we have anything better then 'best effort, hopefully useful" that can be made available.

Hope this feedback is helpful! Thanks for all the great work you do.

Thanks, this feedback was very useful. I think we can get majority of these done for 2.20 and 2.22, but some need a bit more research and thinking before I know what to do, so there will be some updates during this and next release cycle on these. Comment if you think you have some clarifications.

[jliljebl]

Typing standards should be implemented in typewriter generator -- home and end should not move timeline, but cursor. Clipboard should also work.

Clipboard works on my Ubuntu 24.10 (DE: Gnome, X11) on both test development version and locally build Flatpak. This could be some issue on your system with system permissions or something similar.

[jliljebl]

Fixed the Credit Scroll typo

[jliljebl]

Flowblade needs templates or save defaults for typewriter/titler etc.

This one is done, we added Save Generator Template and Load Generator Template buttons in bottom left corner of Add Generator window which will allow user to save existing generators with arbitrary default values and load template for editing/adding to project.

[jliljebl]

Typing standards should be implemented in typewriter generator -- home and end should not move timeline, but cursor. Clipboard should also work.

In my tests Home/End keys always move cursor to the beginning and end of line (not whole text) when a text editing widget has keyboard focus, and only move timeline position when timeline has keyboard focus. This behavior is as expected and correct. For some reason our systems work differently.

[jliljebl]

I added the preference options that make some target areas larger as you requested.

Make the multitrim tool only change to clip tool when hovering over the edges -- it's annoying to find the exact centre in order to do a slip edit

There is new check option Wide Multitrim Slip Target Area in the timeline options popover menu accessed via launcher on the left side above the tracks column. It flips the behavior so that Slip get s all the extra space and Trims get a set amount around cuts.

After selecting a clip the option to resize shouldn't be available for the move tool - this prevents actually moving it when zoomed out too far

Added new check option Disable Clip Ends Drag When Selected in the same popover as above. This disables clip end drags on selected clips for Move and Insert tools.

[jliljebl]

No obvious way to delete old motion tracking data?

There are now a Delete buttons in Motion Tracking Apply and Alpha Shape Motion Tracked filter edit panels.