2016-03-05

Kdenlive UI: Monitors -- Odds and Ends

It's good to see Kdenlive development polishing more and more user interface elements. This makes using Kdenlive easier to both new-comers as well as old hands. Lately, the project and clip monitors got some UI polish.


Now that pictures may lie more than a thousands words, here's the obligatory screenshot of the improved monitor design:

Polished clip and project monitors.

New Integrated Audio Levels Meter


Probably the most obvious change is the audio meter in to bottom right corner of the monitors. This is an excellent example of how to optimize space usage: formerly unused space now displays the audio levels. The old Audio Signal pane can now be retired in many cases, freeing up valuable screen space.

To show the audio levels, in the hamburger menu of the monitors simply select Show Audio Levels.

Split View versus Multitrack View


The old Split View was renamed to Multitrack View to better reflect its function: it displays up to four clips from the current timeline playhead position in a 2×2 grid.

If you want a real Split View in the project monitor that instead that splits the monitor into with/without effects, then you'll find the corresponding button now in the (unified) Properties pane.

Beware, the clip monitor of course still has the split button though.

Small Polish: Dragable Region In/Out Markers


When you hover over the time ruler in a monitor you'll notice the region in/out markers to light up. You can now easily drag them using your mouse using the marker handles. Simple and sweet.

Small Polish: Region In/Out Buttons


In the past, the buttons to set the region in and out points were originally taken from the Breeze icon theme and looked like forward/rewind buttons. Thanks to Kdenlive old-hand Jesse (bug #359846), we now have much better icons.


As you can see in the screenshot above, the new design picks up the zone marker design: a vertical bar with a handle. The arrow then indicates whether it's the region in or out marker.

Small Polish: Save Frame


Save frame now correctly asks you before overwriting an existing image file. This functionality somehow got lost in the transition of Kdenlive from KDE 4 to KDE frameworks 5.

Modular Monitor Overlays


More polish went into the monitor overlay system. This is accessible from the context menu (right click) of the monitors. Please don't confuse the context menu with the hamburger menu mentioned before. (This double menus may still need some polish though.)


Polished context menu and monitor overlays.

You can now flexibly switch on or off these (currently three) specific overlays:
  • Monitor Overlay Markers: shows the name of a guide or In Point or Out Point, whenever the playhead is positioned on a corresponding frame.
  • Monitor Overlay Timecode: shows the timecode as well as the current rendering speed (frames/second). The rendering speed turns red if it drops below a certain threshold – which isn't configurable at this time.
  • Monitor Overlay Safe Zones: shows the safe zones, which may be useful to you when you are preparing SD material.
  • Monitor Info Overlay: acts as a general enable/disable for the aforementioned three individual overlays.

Zoom In/Out 


Those missing the zoom in/out functionality from the Kdenlive 0.9.x series: it's still present. Simply use Ctrl+Shift plus mouse wheel. Good to know.