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This page contains an annotated screenshot of the Media 100 844X Non Linear Editing (NLE) application that  was implemented recently.

Click on the thumbnail to expand the image in a new window.

844XScreenShot.jpg (201511 bytes)

As is mentioned in my resume, I was the team leader for the group that designed the top level model and many of the other detailed windows of this interface. I also implemented most of the bottom window ("The Timeline") as well as many other parts of the application.

The 844X UI is very interactive place to be. Extensive use is made of cursor shapes, roll-over highlighting, object to object hot-links, tool tips, data tips, the mouse wheel, etc. It is difficult to appreciate the complexity and subtleness of the whole interface without using it. That said, here are at least a few points to ponder from the callout letters in the above image:

  1. The images are called "Picons" and represent media files on disk. Users can "scrub" them by grabbing a 'handle' and dragging the mouse left / right. Scrubbing means viewing the media content (images) at arbitrary times under direct control. The usual handle is a vertical line or other time axis affordance as shown by 'D'. In the case of the Picon at 'A', there was no time axis, so one is temporarily drawn translucently in which users can scrub. This time axis also moves horizontally when scrubbing bumps into either edge. It is a fairly cool and unobtrusive technique to provide the user a time axis affordance.
  2. This is a thumbnail image of the entire timeline. it allows the user to get a big picture of the timeline without zooming it all the way out. Objects in the thumbnail such as in and out marks can be scrubbed.
  3. Timecode (the number) is essential to NLE users. There are many sources of timecode and many ways in which to display it. I designed and implemented the 844X timecode subsystem.
  4. The time axis is a scrollable, zoom-able representation of the time component of a program (timeline). It anchors the Current Time Indicator (CTI) with the vertical line, as well as contains other directly manipulated objects such as user marks and the in/out marks. I implemented the base time axis class and most of the instantiations of it throughout the application.
  5. The main timeline area here depicts a region of time and vertical video composition that is selected for a subsequent operation such as lift (remove). The selected area is drawn translucently, and frankly looks pretty cool.
  6. One of the most important elements of an interactive experience is how the system communicates information to the user. Many people have seen and learned to hate the staccato nature of modal dialog boxes. I conceived and designed this message area which allowed us to eliminate many of these such dialogs (e.g. "The disk is near full, press OK"), and replace them with simple messages in the bottom pane that do not interrupt the user's workflow. We can highlight the message (e.g. flash in bold red for 3 sec), and can even beep, but we do not stop the workflow. 
  7. I took this picture in Guadeloupe and we use it for the non-hardware version of the application :-) It just looks nice...
 

 

 

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