How can we improve the docs and your learning experience?

NathanLovato commented 6 years ago

Power sequencer currently comes with a feature table thanks to @doakey3. We also have video tutorials to help you get started with the sequencer in general and the add-on in particular.

We also have the change log to help you track new features, bug fixes, and improvements: https://github.com/GDquest/Blender-power-sequencer/blob/master/changelog.md

How can we improve your learning experience? What's missing? I would also like to make it easier for people to contribute to the docs. We have tools in place to create mini tutorials on the website (which is also open source), but no one contributed content since the 1.0 release. Any suggestions on that?

aditiapratama commented 6 years ago

As for feature table, I think there are room for improvement, such as make left side is static/floating, while the content is scrollable. I can work on this task by the way.

Some example,

For video tutorials, IMO currently it addresses a power user rather than entry level. Maybe we can create a beginner level tutorial for video editing which using BPS Workflow.

NathanLovato commented 6 years ago

I'm mostly interested in your learning experience: getting feedback on what worked for you, what's missing, what you'd like to see. More so than guesses on what may benefit others or attract new users. And the more specific the better: which tutorials are missing? Which topics would you like to see covered?

NathanLovato commented 6 years ago

Agreed for the side menu - currently gdquest.com doesn't have a complete template for docs. If you want to help there, that'd be much welcome!

aditiapratama commented 6 years ago

Agreed for the side menu - currently gdquest.com doesn't have a complete template for docs. If you want to help there, that'd be much welcome!

I already fork the website and now still trying to build the site locally, haven't tried Hugo before :)

guilhermehto commented 6 years ago

My Experience

I'm a really visual and lazy person + I mostly only cut and add crossfades when editing so take this for what it's worth.

Whenever I wanted to see if I could do X with power sequencer, I would, in this particular order, do this:

Ctrl + F and search for keywords that I thought would have to do with what I want to do
Scroll through the Read Me and look at gifs/descriptions
Watch Nathan's videos

I really like bite-sized chunks of information and the table works fine for me, but also for that reason, I feel like I miss on lots of functionalities from the addon (but that's my fault).

For me what would help is mostly improving the table:

More gifs
Maybe quick 1 minute videos about each operator in specific? These would be awesome

For Beginners

If I was just starting out, what I would like would be a ~10 minute video showing me how to install Power Sequencer, get me started with the basic workflow and how to render my work after it's done. For instance, the first video of power sequencer's playlist is 38 minutes, that's really overwhelming for me. The idea for this first video is something to get you quickly started, and if you want to dive deeper, you can watch the longer videos.

Keep in mind that I was already familiar with other video editing programs and also blender. Thus, the reason why I believe that a quick video - that wouldn't show me the basics like blender shortcuts and how to navigate, etc. - would be a better fit for someone like me.

Another thing to keep in mind is that I'm familiar with GitHub, I feel that many video editors wouldn't come here to look for information.

I believe that's it, if I remember more things I'll make sure to add them :)

NathanLovato commented 6 years ago

Thanks! @aditiapratama if you need help to get started, we can open an issue on the gdquest.com repo and discuss it there: https://github.com/GDquest/GDquest-website/issues

NathanLovato commented 6 years ago

Maybe quick 1 minute videos about each operator in specific? These would be awesome

That's +/- the plan with new features and updates, but maybe not 1 minute: these wouldn't work well for youtube, I'm afraid few people would ever watch them, limiting their organic reach a lot and making them a bad time investment (humans being lazy, having to go through 50 video pages and counting would be a pain)

How about 3-5 minute tuts that group related functioinality together ; not only show how one operator works, but how it fits into the editing workflow? Always showing concrete use cases.

E.g. showing all the mouse cut tools and how to use them most effectively:

to keep video and audio in sync
to edit audio separately from video
how it compares to using the keyboard-based workflow

Any requests for specific tutorials? This would help a lot.

henriiquecampos commented 6 years ago

Hey there, so let's see...

Documentation

Well for me, I mostly prefer use built-in docs, I dunno if is possible to attach the README docs to the plugin and somehow when the user click on Documentation, in User Preferences -> Addon -> VSE: Power Sequencer, it would open it. Whenever I wanted to see which were the power sequencer features I could use, I went to the User Preferences -> Input -> power_sequencer. But to be honest this didn't help a lot, because well...I knew they were available but neither I knew how to use them, besides the shortcut, nor how they work.

Small insight

I actually used the README around 3 times, especially at the beginning, it is very well done and is a good source of information, but as @guilhermehto said, most users won't get here on GitHub. The idea of using an YouTube playlist when we click on Documentation in the add-on is a good shot, but I think that layering it through GitHub could be more insightful for users. By layering I mean: when clicking in Documentation it would open the README page, which had a link to the videos playlist.

In resume: the documentation as is, is good already, is easy to get to where you want, since we can share links that send directly to the feature/instruction. I wouldn't change it to be honest.

Learning Experience

I don't think I actually know how to use the addon to its full potential, but here goes stuff that helped me improve a lot the workflow, and I think there are no tuts for this yet:

Using stylus/wacom tablet (I had one retired that now I use on a daily basis for editing, is indeed way more productive) and how the addon adapt them to its context
The core concept of the keybinding (to decrease the left-hand movement on keyboard, i.e. to keep the left-hand landed most of the time)
Using multiple scenes for a project and batch rendering them (I don't do that, but I know @NathanLovato does, so share the secrets with us 😛 )
Interesting settings (like is it possible to change the folders' name the Import Local Footage use?)
Mouse Cut tricks (for instance I always got confused about if it works only in the strip the mouse is over when I release, or if it takes all the channels)
Use cases for Mouse Cut remove/keep gap
Synergy with other Blender's operators, like I currently use snap to cursor a lot. This with the concatenation is awesome for syncing audio-video

Well I think these are my insights, I'll probably have more as I remember doubts I had/have 😁

guilhermehto commented 6 years ago

How about 3-5 minute tuts that group related functioinality together ; not only show how one operator works, but how it fits into the editing workflow? Always showing concrete use cases.

Yep! That would be perfect!

NathanLovato commented 5 years ago

Got some pointers as to what to do in the near future so closing for now

GDQuest / blender-power-sequencer