,
I have two more features to announce today. Some of you might have already noticed these (maybe even used them), but here is the official announcement.
Static Timeline
You asked for it, and here it is. The timeline ruler no longer scrolls with the timeline. It is now static, and is always in view, no matter where you scroll the timeline. A few other fixes to scrolling are included in this feature, and it just feels much more natural now.
[Example of the static timeline, halfway scrolled down]
Simple Export Options
Thanks to the help of lots of readers / contributors, a lot of work from Helen and Andy, we now have a "simple" way to choose export options. Before, you had to know all the specifics of a format, codec, supported bit rate, etc... Now you just have to click a few drop-downs and boom... you have a video! =)
[This screen shows the new simple export options]
DEB and PPA Improvements
We have fixed a bug where the DEB installers were not removing all of their files during an uninstall (specifically the Python bindings for MLT), and the PPA was unaware of these remaining rogue files. This has been addressed in two places. I have updated all 6 of our MLT dependency DEB files to include a new post-remove script. And the PPA now has a pre-install script that checks for these files and removes them. So, if you installed OpenShot as both a DEB and a PPA, and OpenShot will not start, please try and use the PPA again. It should work now.
Source Code Tarball
Our download page now has a new option, source code tarball. It contains an exact copy of our bzr branch. I will update this tarball periodically, just like the .DEB installers. This is really only intended for people packaging OpenShot, and not for the average user. Also, this tarball doesn't contain the dependencies, so OpenShot will only work if it has all it's dependencies installed (especially the MLT Python bindings).
October 4, 2009 4:10 PM
Does any of this fix the annoying "PPA Bug" which uninstalls your video codecs meaning you can have OpenShot but no video playback, or video playback and no openshot?
October 4, 2009 4:32 PM
I wish it were that simple. =) Many of these video players require the 'unrestricted' version of FFmpeg. The OpenShot PPA uses the 'restricted' version of FFmpeg, and thus any packages that don't have both FFmpeg versions listed as possible dependencies are then removed... because their dependency has been removed.
Believe it or not, but we aren't the first project that has been burned by the 2 versions of FFmpeg issue. It's a problem shared by tons of applications.
We just happen to require the newest version of MLT, and h.264 editing requires the newest FFmpeg, and put those together and it gets really complicated really quickly.
It really sucks though. We are continuing to look into other solutions. If you have any ideas on how to fix this, please let me know.
Of course, long term, we will be in the official Ubuntu repositories (as well as other distros), and none of this will matter. =) In the short term, it's a little more frustrating. Hopefully we'll find a work-around soon.
Thanks!
October 4, 2009 4:33 PM
@Joey
To answer your question more directly, no.
October 7, 2009 4:32 PM
If you compile a c/c++ application you can use "-rpath" to force library linking with e.g. "your" version of mlt(ffmpeg).
I don't know much about how you can do this with a scripting language like python. Just out of curiosity, why did you choose python and not e.g. Qt.
October 7, 2009 5:14 PM
@Anonymous,
The reason why I use Python is fairly well documented in the depths of this blog. I chose GTK over Qt because I use Ubuntu, which uses Gnome, which uses GTK.
If you don't know much about Python, you should really check it out. It's a very powerful object-oriented language. It has really made working on OpenShot fun.
October 9, 2009 12:01 PM
I just want to say I love the editor, and I think its simple well thought out design, really puts it in the front. Now it just need stability and features and it will kick serious ass!
I also wrote a tiny bit about it on the miro troubleshooters forum.
I look forward to seeing how it develops. Ps. great screencasts!
http://videowtf.com/questions/44/is-any-linux-video-editing-software-considered-stable-or-good