2010-11-14 23:19:07 +01:00
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Lumiera User Manual
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===================
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Build: provide a placeholder page for the (planned) User-Manual
Debian-Docbase allows to register some HTML documentation;
My old package definition added placeholder config, which renders
the documentation configuration invalid (as pointed out by Lintian).
However, I still think it is a good idea to have the anchor point
already defined, and thus I came up with the idea of in fact
providing some usable placeholder content...
As it turns out, we also have a placeholder page at the Lumiera website,
where the User Manual is assumed to be located later — so why not extend
this one and then provide the HTML-rendering for the DEB package?
To allow for this setup
* I have now extended the placeholder page for the Website
to include some generic description about Lumiera (from the 'about' page)
* Furthermore, I added the screenshot (from the »Outer Space« page)
* and I use this a an opportunity to document the various test / demo
facilities currently available in the GUI, since these are rather obscure.
While only intended for the developer, it seems still worthwhile
to describe the possible effects — it may well be that we retain
some of that test/demo functionality and in that case, we have
now already some starting point for a documentation
* Then, to include that page as stand-alone HTML, I used the 'Print Edit WE'-plugin
from Firefox, to encode the images as inline-base64 URLs (which are restored
by a tiny JavaScript embedded into that page)
* and last but not least, our SCons buildsystem needs the ability
to install such a documentation file, since it seems most adequate
to handle this requirement as part of the generic installation (and
not hidden in some Debian scripting)
2025-11-18 16:09:54 +01:00
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.There is no »User Manual« -- yet
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The plan is to create the manual and tutorials later in a collaborative way. +
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This work is postponed until the software is actually usable.
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2010-11-14 23:19:07 +01:00
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|
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Build: provide a placeholder page for the (planned) User-Manual
Debian-Docbase allows to register some HTML documentation;
My old package definition added placeholder config, which renders
the documentation configuration invalid (as pointed out by Lintian).
However, I still think it is a good idea to have the anchor point
already defined, and thus I came up with the idea of in fact
providing some usable placeholder content...
As it turns out, we also have a placeholder page at the Lumiera website,
where the User Manual is assumed to be located later — so why not extend
this one and then provide the HTML-rendering for the DEB package?
To allow for this setup
* I have now extended the placeholder page for the Website
to include some generic description about Lumiera (from the 'about' page)
* Furthermore, I added the screenshot (from the »Outer Space« page)
* and I use this a an opportunity to document the various test / demo
facilities currently available in the GUI, since these are rather obscure.
While only intended for the developer, it seems still worthwhile
to describe the possible effects — it may well be that we retain
some of that test/demo functionality and in that case, we have
now already some starting point for a documentation
* Then, to include that page as stand-alone HTML, I used the 'Print Edit WE'-plugin
from Firefox, to encode the images as inline-base64 URLs (which are restored
by a tiny JavaScript embedded into that page)
* and last but not least, our SCons buildsystem needs the ability
to install such a documentation file, since it seems most adequate
to handle this requirement as part of the generic installation (and
not hidden in some Debian scripting)
2025-11-18 16:09:54 +01:00
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.What is »Lumiera«?
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Lumiera is a Free/Open Source project to build a Non-Linear Video Editing (NLE)
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and compositing application for GNU/Linux.
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Its primary focus is professional editing, quality, usability and flexibility.
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On the one hand, it must meet the rigours of a professional
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film and video production environment; on the other hand, it must
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be flexible enough to satisfy the needs of more modest single-user
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equipment.
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2010-11-14 23:19:07 +01:00
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|
|
|
Build: provide a placeholder page for the (planned) User-Manual
Debian-Docbase allows to register some HTML documentation;
My old package definition added placeholder config, which renders
the documentation configuration invalid (as pointed out by Lintian).
However, I still think it is a good idea to have the anchor point
already defined, and thus I came up with the idea of in fact
providing some usable placeholder content...
As it turns out, we also have a placeholder page at the Lumiera website,
where the User Manual is assumed to be located later — so why not extend
this one and then provide the HTML-rendering for the DEB package?
To allow for this setup
* I have now extended the placeholder page for the Website
to include some generic description about Lumiera (from the 'about' page)
* Furthermore, I added the screenshot (from the »Outer Space« page)
* and I use this a an opportunity to document the various test / demo
facilities currently available in the GUI, since these are rather obscure.
While only intended for the developer, it seems still worthwhile
to describe the possible effects — it may well be that we retain
some of that test/demo functionality and in that case, we have
now already some starting point for a documentation
* Then, to include that page as stand-alone HTML, I used the 'Print Edit WE'-plugin
from Firefox, to encode the images as inline-base64 URLs (which are restored
by a tiny JavaScript embedded into that page)
* and last but not least, our SCons buildsystem needs the ability
to install such a documentation file, since it seems most adequate
to handle this requirement as part of the generic installation (and
not hidden in some Debian scripting)
2025-11-18 16:09:54 +01:00
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These ambitious goals have led us to a complex and flexible internal structure,
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over the course of the last years. Many elements still need to be connected and
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integrated, so that the functionality becomes visible and can be explored by users.
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And we are a small team. Nevertheless, please be assured that work on the project is ongoing.
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- Look at the https://git.lumiera.org/[Git repositories] to see current activity
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- Visit the http://Lumiera.org/documentation/user/intro/intro.html[»Lumiera from Outer Space«]
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page at the https://Lumiera.org[Lumiera.org] website to read more about the Design and Vision.
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UI Experiments
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--------------
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While most of the work is focused at the inner workings of the Render Engine
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(as of Nov.2025), the User Interface has been upgraded to GTK-3 and outfitted with
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some experimental connection channels, to test interplay with the application core.
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After launching the `lumiera` application, a main window will be displayed.
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image:{imgg}/lumiera20250823.png["Lumiera GTK UI / Screenshot 2025-08",width=650, link="{imgg}/lumiera20250823.png"]
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Video Output
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~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The [green]#▶#_play_ / [blue]#⏸#_pause_ / [red]#⏹#_stop_ buttons will activate some video output demo code,
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which is actually quite old -- it was extracted 2009 from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kino_(software)[Kino]
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video editing software and used for various experiments since then. In its current shape,
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this dummy playback ensures that Lumiera is properly built and linked to use the
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_video_extension[XVideo] standard with the help of the X11 XServer.
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This _archaic_ standard from 1991 presumably was the first widely available and vendor-neutral interface
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for passing raw video frames to the GPU, which then scales and integrates them into the desktop display.
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The video frames for this demo _are not generated by the Lumiera Render Engine_ -- and
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thus this code is largely obsolete; maybe it will continue to live somewhere as a fallback
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for systems without proper support of OpenGL?
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The UI-Bus
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~~~~~~~~~~
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Instead of accessing a shared data model, the Lumiera UI is connected to the core
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through an _asynchronous messaging channel,_ to dispatch command instructions into the
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session and to push responses up into the UI. There is a demo to verify this setup
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by pushing info and error messages into the »Info Box«
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- In the ``Help'' menu, there is the entry `Help > Self Tests'
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- The tab https://issues.lumiera.org/ticket/1099[#1099] in this non-modal dialog box
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allows to push notification messages into the UI-Bus...
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* enter some text into the input widget at the top
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* send a display message with this text at Info / Warn / or Error level
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* or push the ``mark'' button to send a `mark` message, selected from the
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drop-down
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Timeline Display
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The second tab in this ``Test and Diagnostics'' dialog box (`Help > Self Tests')
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allows to _Populate the Timeline Display_ with a structure corresponding to session content.
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This structure is sent over the UI-Bus as a ``Diff Message'' -- basically the core can notify
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the UI about changes in structured content elements, which both sides know, without ever sharing
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a common data representation.
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This demo engages this mechanism to _populate_ an previously empty Timeline with structured content;
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the actual content is hard-wired for this test, offering two flavours (``Sequence 1'' and ``Sequence 2'').
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Sequence 1::
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A single Track, with two Clips, which can be clicked and dragged; they have a fixed given length,
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but no further content.
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Sequence 2::
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A complex arrangement of nested tracks, some of which are expanded, and some have overview rulers.
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Note that it is possible to scroll vertically, while the top-level overview rulers remain always
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visible and pinned on top. Note furthermore that the _Track-Head display_ in the left pane scrolles
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alongside, and remains in sync with the main content pane. Tracks can not yet be expanded / collapsed
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The Button ``move elements'' is part of an ongoing experiment and currently disabled.
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NOTE: the panes can be undocked and re-arranged, but retain their identity, so that
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they can be addressed via UI-Bus without knowing where they are actually located
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in the UI. [red]#And there are various known problems related to those docks...#
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