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It's funny how this idea exists in every paradigm I can think of.

In video editing, Avid Media Composer has an unparalleled function composition feature. All of the UI depends on it - the alt-keys form related commands, every tool has a semantic that you can't escape. In Avid, you can only edit the keybindings for keys with/without shift pressed. No alt-pressed or alt-shift etc. Semantics of all of these come overloaded out of the box.

Final Cut and Premiere are a completely different thing. Infinitely customisable, you can define any key (or cmd-key or cmd-fn-alt-shift-key) to do any thing. What a redundant idea. Tools don't carry any semantics, so if you're trying to, say, trim 10 frames forward, but you're not in trim mode - error beep. In Avid, the idea of modes is so powerful that each function key has maximum functionality outside that mode.

It's a shame how many UI designers get it wrong.



That's fascinating! I have ofttimes felt the urge to learn a good video editing workflow as a hobby (though haven't as of yet gotten around to it), and I'd never have known of this heaven-and-hell difference without experiencing the pain first hand. I know these tools tend to overlap with DAWs, but do you know about this automation/productivity landscape on the side of audio production and editing?


Video editing features are all quantised to one frame – that's why Avid shows that frame as a range, not a point. Audio editing tends to be continuous rather than discreet, so it's a different UI strategy. There's no "end of word" to speak of, there's "end of beat", and I can't really tell you about that. I will tell you that I couldn't find any DJ tool which matches Avid's semantic level. One that comes very close is the Serato Itch, along with the Novation Twitch controller - overloaded semantics on every command, sharp mode separation, at no compromise over control.




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