Please test the BETA for version 22.03

Please test now the Release Candidate

Rules of Participation (Important)

  • We are primarily interested in major regressions since version v21.12.
  • We are also interested in major bugs in new features and changes specific to this release.
  • Do not report about existing bugs that have not been indicated as fixed by this version.
  • Provide all feedback as a reply within this thread or as a GitHub Issue.
    If using a GitHub issue, make sure you indicate the version.
  • The beta period will end by March 25.

Download

Get the beta release from this GitHub page that also includes the list of fixes, changes, and additions.

Thank You For Your Help!

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I’m surprised to see the beta for this now because the discussion on the Notes feature made me expect a follow up from where it was last left off:

So far they haven’t been addressed.

Thanks for the Notes panel! That will be very useful.

Would it be possible to add a way to change the text size though?
I use a 21" monitor and the display is set at 1920x1080.

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And this is what I see in the Notes panel:

shotcut_x71Dltg0fI

It’s readable, but a bit small. I don’t really mind this text size in the rest of UI, but in Notes, I wish it would be easier to read.

Also regarding the Notes panel.

It seems that the notes are not always saved with the project. At first I thought it was because of a characters limit, but I also tried with shorter texts and same thing. Sometimes the notes are saved, sometimes not. Sorry, I didn’t figure out yet what are the events that saves the notes or not save them.

Another thing. As shown below, on this new project if I write some notes, the asterisk appears to indicate an unsaved project, but the save button and the File/Save option are not working.
O6YpSkP1xJ

Another strange behavior
If I manage to save a project (with only notes, nothing else added), when I open it again, the viewer content is white instead of grey and I get an error when trying to save after editing the notes.

Your screen also shows the New Project and Recent Projects views. This means you never did anything with media, and there is nothing to save. Sorry, but I think notes alone are not going to be saved as they are actually attached to some media-related object such as playlist or timeline. I guess you can add a track and remove it, or add something to the playlist and remove to workaround that.

Another strange behavior

Yes, I agree it is strange to treat the video editor like a text editor.

when I open it again, the viewer content is white instead of grey

The engine shows white when there is a problem, and here you have a video editing project with some empty playlist or timeline. I do not think this is a problem. The New Project and Recent Projects views must go away, and it attempts to show whatever you did to workaround the saving issue as mentioned above.

What? I don’t intend to use Shotcut as a text editor. I’m just trying to help/contribute here by reporting a possible bug.

If you think a little longer you might find one or two circumstances when you’d want to add notes to a project and save it without adding anything else.

Suppose I have an idea for a new project. I could write the basic concepts of this ideas on a piece of paper, or in Windows Notepad. OR, since there is now a note taking feature in Shotcut, I could launch a project, write the notes about this idea and save it in my “To do” folder until I’m ready to work on it.

Maybe that’s not something you would do. But personally I liked this possible aspect of the Notes panel.

On Linux the font size is fine, the follow the system fonts, it use the system fonts.
If I use accessibility features in Gnome like Large Text, it get bigger fonts.

I would be a nice feature in a future version to be able to set the font type and size, to be able to a fixed size font.

Screenshot from 2022-03-07 08-50-45
Screenshot from 2022-03-07 08-53-09

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Thanks @TimLau
I may not be the sharpest pen in the box, but this could mean that depending on the operating system, screen size and/or display configuration, the text in Notes will be a different size depending on each user’s device, making a Size option desirable. The ability to change font would also be nice, but that’s a text editor’s job. Not needed in a video editor.

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Fixed Gradient video filter when a color alpha value is not fully opaque.

Adding a gradient filter via semi transparant colors on a transparent color clip on the top of a video
gives some weird gliches. looks like some white frames are added

EDIT:
If I add the filter directly to the video clip and disable V2, it works as expected, no glitching
Added a .mlt with the video replaced with a black background to reproduce the issue


Screenshot from 2022-03-07 10-10-31
Screenshot from 2022-03-07 10-20-30
gradient_test.mlt (6.4 KB)

I initially deleted my post in this thread on top here:

because I forgot about Dan’s wish that these beta threads not talk about existing bugs. But @brian said here he wants the discussion on those issues discussed in this thread. So I undeleted my post above.

So the issues are:

  • The Tab button works when the Notes panel is undocked but does not work when the panel is docked.

  • The placement of the icon for the Notes panel is currently at the end of the line of icons after the Export and Jobs panels which in my opinion doesn’t make sense. I suggested in the other thread, “Maybe like after the Recent icon since if someone has Notes for a project that they are opening again then they would probably want to look at their notes before starting again or before the History icon.” Dan agreed, “I can agree to move it to after Recent as it could be perceived as related to (project) Properties or perhaps Recent from a workflow perspective as you pointed out.”

  • Changing the placement of the icon of the notes panel would also mean a change for its shortcut key. Dan brought up an additional issue with the current shortcut key (Ctrl+Shift+0) saying, “it is not working for me on Windows for some reason.”

I had thought about the Tab issue and based on Dan saying that his rule is that all panels should dock I suggested here in that Notes thread a change in the shortcut keys and behavior of how Tab in general is treated to accommodate this. But after thinking more about it really the best and simplest solution is to make the Notes panel the sole exception of a panel that does not dock. It solves everything as nothing in the current behaviors would change, the expected Tab function in a notepad like feature is kept intact and it eliminates the inconsistency that Tab works when it is floating but doesn’t when it’s docked.

It’s not like this would go against any expectation. The equivalent feature in Resolve always floats and does not dock. Also having a Notes panel is the equivalent of Windows’ Notepad feature but just for Shotcut. Anyone that uses Windows’ Notepad while working in another program is already used to having Notepad float around. In fact, there is a great example of a use case of how a Notes panel floating would work and come in handy in an actual Shotcut project.

Look at @jonray’s Text tutorial here:

In it he pulls up Window’s Notepad with the text already laid out that he wants to use in the project. He resized the Notepad window and placed it on the right side of the Shotcut window. But the issue is that when he clicks away from Notepad then naturally Notepad goes away from sight so he has to use an additional app to keep it on top while working in Shotcut. Shotcut’s Notes helps the user avoid having to use two apps while working with notes in Shotcut. As you can see from his video, having the Notes panel float while working would not be problem at all and in fact would come naturally especially since the size of Notes is fully customizable and can be moved anywhere. When the user doesn’t need to look at it anymore the panel can just be closed and opened back up when it is needed again.

I will never make it non-dockable; it was just about the default. Now, I am a little worried that new users will not understand how to close it and complain about it obscuring the most important parts of the UI. I have decided to keep it docked by default, and you can make it floating if that is what you want. I do not really care about what Resolve is doing here. The multiple windows issue you mention exists regardless as long as you use a non-tiling windowing system. The tab inconsistency is low priority because, honestly, I do not care about the Notes feature much and might even remove it.

How would anyone not understand how to close it when the X button is right there? And why would anyone complain about it obscuring anything when it can be resized, moved (almost) wherever you want and of course closed when you don’t need to see it?

You’re going to remove a feature that a number of people were asking for and finally got? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Not a new bug and might not be addressed in this release. You should therefore create a separate bug report for it.

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I think we have a situation that a vocal minority are eager for this feature. Does that mean we should give it high prominence in the UI? Probably not. Does that mean we should remove it? Also probably no.

As an analogy, consider the “Peak Meter” and the “Loudness” scopes. I have heard users say that they depend greatly on the Loudness scope. But it does not have a top toolbar button nor a keyboard shortcut. Why? Because we give less popular features less prominence (even if some people think they are very important).

I think we could treat the notes feature similar to some of the scopes. It could have less prominence.

Here is my proposal:

  • Remove the toolbar button for Notes
  • Remove the keyboard shortcut for Notes
  • Create a new submenu in the view menu called “Project” similar to the existing “Scopes” submenu
  • Move the Notes, Recent and History entries into the project submenu (Recent and History would keep their toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts)

I think the notes panel should not have any special docking behaviors or defaults. It should behave exactly like all the other panels.

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How do you figure it’s a vocal minority though? There have been two threads created requesting this feature. One of the threads got 5 likes and that doesn’t include others that supported the idea but didn’t give the threads a like such as myself. That’s about as high as popular requests usually get around here such as Speed Ramping. This thread here requesting speed ramping got the same amount of likes that @MusicalBox’s suggestion for a Notes feature got. Would that also mean it’s a vocal minority that wanted speed ramping even though it’s observably very popular and widely used in video editing? Going by that measure, it would seem that a Notes feature is actually popular and used more widely than you may think.

It’s not as if this is an arbitrary invention since this feature exists in other programs. Kdenlive has had it in fact for some years now: Kdenlive/Manual/Projects and Files/Notes - KDE UserBase Wiki

It may not be something Dan cares about but if Shotcut has aims to scale up and become a video editor that can support long and much more complicated editing then trust me that a Notes feature will come very much in handy to even more people then. I mean just look at @jonray’s video that I linked up top. How can you not see how this feature would serve others? He needed two apps to accomplish what this Notes feature would support internally.

Why any of this? Were the button and shortcut keys really the issue here? I find it strange to want to nuke or undermine such a simple but helpful feature that has been supported by as many people here on the forum as anything else suggested.

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I’ve been using Jon’s method for a while now. But having the project Notes integrated in the UI is more convenient in my opinion. No need to launch additional apps like Notepad and TurboTop.

If the Note panel survives this BETA version and ever gets the Text Size setting (or if I figure out myself how to change the font size), I will personally use it on all my projects. And I bet many users of the silent majority will use it as well when they find out it’s available.

is it normal that Shotcut starts like this now? The timeline is now outside.
Linux,

No, only when you click the undock button.
2022-03-08 16_03_22-long_movie.mlt - Shotcut

You can drag the window into the GUI an place it the right place.

Or select “View → Layout → Restore Default Layout” to reset the UI

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