Ideas needed: Help article about the Editor

I think a big screenshot with annotations would work well.

i once asked my brother, who is a computer programmer, how they wrote their manuals. he said, 'we dont. we hire someone who has no knowledge of the program and have them write it. we are too knowledgable and take too much for granted. we want someone who has to learn the program and write as they learn.

and going along with that, and no offense intended, but programmers are the worst technical writers in the world. they speak 'technical' and nobody but another 'technical' can understand them. i mean, why write a manual for folks that already know the manual?

i looked at your page and the first thing i noticed was no definitions. simple things we now take for granted, others are going to stumble on. what is a 'node'? heck, what is a 'filter' for that matter. i recall in the early days of all this not knowing what some things were and there's still some i dont really know, like all the different 'maps'.

but, i amend some of that depending on who your target audience is. if it's for novices, then i dont ameand any of it, but if it's only for professionals, then some things are going to be commonplace. and since FF can work very nicely without any other graphic engine, i think you have to assume that not everyone is going to be familiar with even some VERY common things, like 'sharpen' and 'contrast' and so on.

i also recall fumbling around in the early days with just getting oriented to where things are. i mean, i recall going, 'ok, they said there's an editor here, but where is it? how do i invoke it?'. sounds silly, but you're going to get those questions.

so, a big portion of a manual is orienting and defining. show them where things are and then define what they find there. that's 80% of the job. then, and only then, show them how things work together... you plug this into this and get this, but when you plug this into that, you get something else.

some of the questions i remember having were,

1. why are some nodes one color and others another color?
2. why are there two different slider types?
3. how do i move around in the editor?
4. are there any 'hot keys' ?
5. what's the difference between 'simple' and 'surface' types?
6. what are 'curve ops'? (curves, i was familiar with from psp and other engines).

good techincal writing is a trick. you might take a look at some of the early forum postings for some of the other questions we newbies had. basically, if it exists or even potentially exists, someone is going to ask the question (or think it and not ask it because they'd be too embarrassed ).

uber,

yeah, that's why i said "depending on who your target audience is." and you're probably right; most folks using FF are probably going to have some graphic engine experience.

and i like the 'tips and tricks' idea.

Quote
Kraellin wrote: 3. how do i move around in the editor? 6. what are 'curve ops'? (curves, i was familiar with from psp and other engines).

3. What do you mean by that -- moving/panning/zooming?
6. 'Curve Ops' = 'Curve Operations'. We needed a short name for a category that contains all curve modifiers and combiners, and I assumed that Ops is a good substitute for Operations.

vlad,

yes, moving, panning, the whole thing.

yes, i figured out what curve ops were. the point is, we, the users had to figure things out a bit. it wasnt all that difficult for most of it and that is a testament to the interface and to you guys that made it. a lot of my early questions werent posted. i simply tried things out until i made sense of things. i mean, two plus two usually does equal four.

so, again, i guess it's a question of who you're targetting. how much do you assume your users are aquainted with in this sort of program and how intuitive do you feel the program is?

Quote
Whitedove wrote: the biggest problem I have is knowing what I can connect to what.

Donna, the components are connected as follows:
- Green to Green
- Blue to Blue
- Gray to Anything

(means Green components to Green inputs etc...)

Quote
Whitedove wrote: why can't I connect a circular arc to a noise gradient or a checker pattern component?

Circular Arc is a curve component (blue), it can be connected only to curve inputs (also blue). Since both Checker and Noise Gradient don't have curve inputs, they can't accept connections from curves.

Donna -- your questions is exactly what I was asking for. Please feel free to ask more!

Vladimir,

how about a section that shows very basic Photoshop tasks/concepts and their respective equivalents in FF as a primer for people used to the layer-based work paradigm? I am thinking of very fundamental questions about the difference in concepts that we all take for granted, like...

- where are my layers?
- where are my selections?
- where are my brushes?
- how can I put one image layer above another?
- how can I blend a layer against another?
- how can I mask a layer with some image?
- how can I make portions of a layer transparent?
- how can I scale/transform a layer?
- how can I change my canvas?

etc...

Quote
Crapadilla wrote: a section that shows very basic Photoshop tasks/concepts and their respective equivalents in FF as a primer for people used to the layer-based work paradigm

FANTASTIC! That would be great!
Donna

Quote
Crapadilla wrote: how about a section that shows very basic Photoshop tasks/concepts and their respective equivalents in FF as a primer for people used to the layer-based work paradigm?

We had a dedicated article for this. We dropped the idea because the explanation was very cumbersome, especially when supplemented with screenshots. I think we'll go with the casual explanation (see my post about 'How Components Work Together' above).

However, the idea of providing some examples of basic tasks like masking an image, mixing two images together, scaling/rotating, making areas transparent etc is very good. Maybe it even deserves to be placed in the main Editor article.

I think some tutorials would do a lot. I personally was able to figure out most things from just using the program. the slider vs. intslider was definitely one of my initial questions. I still haven't figured out all the different curves--in fact I was going to request as an option to have a curve that works like the PS curve, where you can adjust it by placing multiple control points. To me, that would eliminate having so many different curve options.

The other thing that would help is a short explanation plus example usage for each of the components.

Those are my thoughts. Might be a bit random.

profile gradient is the one that currently drives me a bit nuts at times. it seems to act like a curves gradient but i'm often surprised by the results it produces when plugged into some nodes.

uber,

to me, and mind you this may not be what everyone else thinks, a curves gradient would be one like if you took the steps curve, put it into a nice rectangular configuration and then feathered it out horizontally. you can see a similar effect sometimes in some of the curves components where they can be feathered a bit in their strength.

Quote
Crapadilla wrote: just looking at filters and analyzing the thinking behind them should make for an incredible learning experience...

True, but some people are not analytically minded and if they're going to pay $300 for a program, they will want every little detail spelled out.


Donna

I suspect that after FF goes on sale and becomes popular, there will be web sites popping up all over the place with tutorials, just like the ones for Photoshop. Which is fine, I've learned tons of stuff for Photoshop from personal web sites.

Donna

We've updated the article:
http://www.filterforge.com/more/help/...ditor.html

Don't read the text -- it's far from final.
Look at the structure.

Hey Vladmir, great addition. Thanks. I think the HOW TOs with screenshots is a good way to go. I think a lot of people don't like to read too much technical stuffs about the software and preffer use by trying and following little tutorials. Maybe would have a new section in the helpwiki as HowTo/Tutorials. Maybe this section would be added as a new tab in the FF site where FF team would add articles/tutorials about HOW TOs or even members would contribute by sending theirs HOW TOs to FF team review and approve them and add in FF site HowTo/Tutorials tab.

Cheers,
Lucato