If we exchange the keyboard for a touchpad I think we could edit in a Lightworks Console way, without looking at our input devices and without missing the right moment because i.e. you hit next to mark key on your keyboard.

I suggested the same already here: Improved/New Console and want to bring the discussion to a new level.

There was one particular remark about maybe using a Kinect. Although I believe this is not a bad idea. I think we got less possibilities when we drop the mouse altogether. I want to drop the keyboard for common editing navigation and actions.

I made a squalid video to show you what I mean.



This thread is about the idea itself. Which design of the touch pad would be best? Are there gestures we should include? What do you think about it?

Here are some more basic gestures. Of course I show them slowly so you can distinguish the gestures more easily. You can imagine how fast you could go with it.

Due to the low response I wonder whether this is a good idea to push. Let me talk about two main drawbacks which I currently see but with clever design could be taken care of.

1) Lack of tactile feedback
2) Know-by-heart-principle

Let me think aloud about those two

1) Once I got used to the touchscreen of my smartphone I am absolutely happy with how it works. First, I enabled vibration whenever I hit something important but soon I discovered that unnecessary. But the most annoying thing of a smartphone with touchscreen still remains actual writing. Until Swype (and pals) took the stage, which basically has you to wipe above a virtual keyboard and allows for some quick and easy (one finger) writing. So I see an improvement here.

2) You certainly have to know your gestures to work with something like that orderly. Another problem, another opportunity: Once you get the grip you work faster. Best example: Menus and shortcuts. To use a menu, you don't have to know anything but how to access it. To know all the shortcuts of this menu by heart is a little difficult to start but eventually you will win a lot of time. Same with hitting dedicated buttons and using gestures instead. What I experience when I play the piano is that it's much harder to for me to play blindfolded than to play by heart. Even with pieces I play for years now, I still have to occasionally glimpse on the keys. What happens when I don't? I miss a key or chord. Translated to Lightworks: I miss so I have to redo.

Now. How the touch pad interface could be strictly logical.

The Console 2 has 20 buttons (with function key that makes 40 actions). Some of them are purely for transportation purposes. Like Play, Reverse, Right, Left etc. which as gestures are easy to remember, because you use them all the time. Two fingers wipe left or right move the playhead by the increment of a frame. Three fingers jumps to next cut, four fingers works like home and end. You know this by heart without even trying.

Insert (four finger wipe down), Replace (ring+point finger press two other fingers wipe down), Delete (now wipe up) and Remove (same here) are so logical you will never forget them. There are many more. I think.

Now about the realisation:
I looked for Android Apps which allow you to define gestures your self and remotely control your PC. I found nothing and also think, that the Android Device should be hooked up via USB. Maybe I have to dive (deep, I am afraid) into App Development. Although I think this path is only temporarily. Because the screen is actually too small for four or five finger gestures.

I much more like the possibility of Apples Trackpad. The tactile 'click' could help a lot with commands which require a mirror action, like Mark and Unmark.

VFB,

I actually think you're on to something. There will aways be those who will say the console is good enough, there's no need for anything else. But that's not how innovation happens. You try different things and one day you hit on something revolutionary that changes everything.

I look forward to your progress in this endeavor and when the Touche becomes the norm for editing.

I think you need to look at some of the USB touchpads, the company in Utah that makes them has an SDK for things like touch and gestures. I have one of these but can't remember the actual manufacturer name (mine says Adesso), might have been Cirque but I might be wrong. They have pads from an inch or two to much larger that might work.

And I hate to say this, but until you make one and show how it can improve a workflow people will think it is foolish. I think it may work but you will need need a lot of gestures. I think it might also work better with a touch display much like any tablet computer, etc.

I am in no way a developer and thus unsure how to even make this work, but what about using a tablet such as a Galaxy 10.1 or Ipad as the device allowing customized layout? I'm not sure if that could even work in the real world but the customized aspect would be top notch. This is a great idea you have!

Greg: That is the problem, I think. I once knew a little PHP and I can fiddle my way with HTML but actual coding is beyond my intellect. With taking a dive into App development, I really only considered the possibility. I am by no means an engineer.

That's why I made the videos. I think I have to make more of them.

I actually hoped someone with the abilities sees this and proceeds with the idea.

Andrew:
I certainly like the potential of tablets (thanks to a dedicated screen). But I also wonder whether it'll be fast enough. There shouldn't be a lag. I would consider everything else a major flaw.

Ok. Please help me. I am taking a look at what are the most important gestures. Just copy and paste the console doesn't work and since I don't know how people actually use the console I'd like to hear from someone who uses it on a daily basis what the most important user functions etc. are. Can anybody help?

I know, it seems stupid, to reinvent the wheel without actually knowing anything about it. But I really want this to work... well.

I don't use the Lightworks console but I've used similar devices for video editing and I think that you can not replace a jog shuttle with a touchpad, that's even more awkward as trying to replace a focus rung with buttons. It just doesn't work because it lacks the 'feeling', the tactile integration between man and machine.

Not saying that you can't use other methods to navigate through time and control playback speed that are more suitable for tablets and touchpads (even though I hate the latter).

hrmpf: focus ring with buttons. I don't get the analogy but anyways I don't agree As I understood the jog wheel of the console has no 'click' feedback when you move on a frame. So where is the difference to a finger on a peace of glass? It has to be accurate by design, no question.
Do you know Chiral Scroll by synaptics touchpad devices? It works like a charm, is precise and instantaneous. But of course, there will be more ways to navigate through time so everybody can pick out their most preferred.

For jog I think it could be to just draw a circle with your finger (one finger), one full revolution moves the first frame, then maybe four frames per additional revolution. Not sure what to do with shuttle.

As far as functions go, I think the most important functions were placed on the main panel of my device. Play forward, play reverse, in, out, insert next, replace next, undo, redo, etc. Take a look and see if you agree.

For some people trimming is very important, that's why I put them in the center above the jog wheel, also the delete/remove functions are there. That should give you a good list to start thinking of natural gestures that might work.

VFB wrote:


It has, iirc after 15 years, mechanical 'resistance' in fast/slow forward and backward that increases with how far you turn the knob in one 'mode'. When you pressed it on top it clicked into another mode where turning the knob would be without resistance and bring frame by frame movement.

You can not emulate those with a piece of glass.

Secondly. the console has a fair amount of real buttons, which can't be emulated on glas.

Like I said, feel free to invent, or think about, a new way to interact with the software through a glass panel, but trying to emulate a jog-shuttle (if you haven't ever used them) is a lost cause.

But the people who have never used any of the old edit controllers might not care so I think this is worth some effort even if I never get the hang of it. Something cheap like a Bamboo Pena and Touch tablet could be used for the control surface, then jump into Photoshop and grab the pen to do something.

Again while I'm having trouble grasping everything that would need to be done, I think it is worth some time spent in thinking of alternatives. All us oldtimers may end up with something like this in the next couple of years. FYI I started editing on the oldest Umatic controller Sony made, there was no jog/shuttle knob on these systems with the old top loader decks. Getting a jog/shuttle controller was pure magic back then. I've also used quad tape too but not as much as some of you guys, and was taught how to splice edit the stuff just for the oddity value.

I was just reading this thread - and this is just a random thought - but we shouldn't forget that these days we're not controlling tape. We have instant, random access. Of course, sometimes the way tape works is more suited to how we think: the way mechanical tape responds (the "ballistics") is actually very intuitive because there is a proportionality between where an item is on the tape and the time it takes to get there. To use an old analogy (and it really is old - I've used it on this forum before): if a cowboy had never seen the controls of a Jumbo Jet, he'd ask the pilot where to attach his reigns.

I just saw this:

www.postmagazine.com/Press-Center/Daily-News/2012/Smith-Micro-Wacom-partner-on-multi-touch-solutio.aspx

It's almost what I mean for CGI. Which, of course, demands a totally different approach for multi finger gestures than for editing.

Within a few days I will post my gesture list here and hope you let me know what you think of it.