Bugs report + suggestions

[acritum]

Thank you. Still when you don't have more important suggestions, please ponder on the following tweak. It will not bother the users who got used to the existing way of saving files but will help a lot to those users who have many sources in many folders and want to create the edited video in the same folder with the source file avoid confusion.  Then the quality of the output can be tested and the unneeded source file can be deleted at once without undesired switching from folder to folder and copying files to and fro that only waste time a lot if you have many files to work with. I think it will be accurate and will not bother anyone if implemented like this:

[eumagga0x2a]

I've submitted a pull request for a quickly thrown together patch implementing your suggestion.

[acritum]

Thank you. You fix everything faster than I can think of new suggestions With all these fixes Avidemux seems to become the best. I only can't find any way of removing A/B markers without any changes to the editing process.  I tried various ways: "undo" is not exactly the same (it can remove the last marker only if it was just added) , "reset edit" also removes all changes made to the video. The only way of saving the complete video after using markers seems to be setting maker A to the beginning and marker B to the end of the video, and this is not very convenient. Maybe there is a simpler method, but it is not obvious to me. I think this feature is required by many users and should be at the finger's touch distance but I don't see any buttons to get rid of the markers. Maybe it exists somewhere and I  just don't see it? If not, a good solution would be to add a button to the navigation bar, after [ A ] and  [B ], yet another button [Remove markers]. Additionally, in the menu [Edit], after [Set Marker B], add another item [Remove both markers].

[eumagga0x2a]

Technically, the markers A and B are never unset.

[acritum]

Then make them point to the beginning and the end of the video with one button (actually, bring them to the state they are when the program has just been loaded). By now, we go to the beginning, click A, go to the end, click B, and these are 4 actions instead of one when we need to select the complete footage.

[Jan Gruuthuse]

@acritum: Are you certain?

Technically, the markers A and B are never unset.

When you load video these should be set:
Time Index @ bottom right hand shows begin and endpoint are set
A: [00:00:00.000]
B: [00:00:37.930]

[acritum]

Are you certain? When you load video these should be set:
Time Index @ bottom right hand shows begin and endpoint are set
A: [00:00:00.000]
B: [00:00:37.930]

So, now select any parts in the middle. Now you decide that you don't need the selection anymore and want to save the complete video. And how are you going to set the markers back to the beginning and to the end, so that it could be fast and convenient?

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Make up your mind before you select markers 
If you did set unwanted markers, either:
- 2 times keyboard shortcut [Ctrl][Z] (undo once)
- or select Avidemux Menu: Edit: Reset Edit
The developers just did go to a great length to simplify the avidemux GUI!
It is still a simple tool.
source: Avidemux Quickstart

[acritum]

Make up your mind before you select markers 
If you did set unwanted markers, either:
- 2 times keyboard shortcut [Ctrl][Z] (undo once)
- or select Avidemux Menu: Edit: Reset Edit
The developers just did go to a great length to simplify the avidemux GUI!
It is still a simple tool.
source: Avidemux Quickstart

As I wrote at 06:06:05 AM, all these methods are not universal.

When you have a lot to do, you can select a part, delete it, select another part, delete it, select another part... now you already cannot use Reset Edit to remove markers, because you will loose all the work that you have done cutting the video. Now, if you go to filters and add some filters, you notice that the markers are still there and you don't need them anymore. If you use Undo, you will remove the filters that you have just added, but the makers will remain in their places.  "Make up your mind before you select markers" seems to work the best but unfortunately, it doesn't help every time In the simplest case you can just select something not accurate, look at it and find out that it was much better before the selection. This often happens when the place that you want to cut starts not from an I-frame, and the selection you get goes before or after that place. Another case: you may want to work with parts of the video, select and save all the original streams of the required (best) parts to separate files, and finally do something with the whole video (for example, resize 1080 to 720 to win some HDD space), and again, you need to get rid of the markers before you can do it. Of course you may say "work with the whole video first and then use markers", but this is a never-ending chat. There are many ways of working but we choose the ones that are more convenient to do every single task that we have to do. All I'm trying to say is that I do have to get rid of the markers more often than you may imagine and probably I'm not alone with this issue. If it were a matter of 1-2 times, I wouldn't even raise this subject up. Simple GUI is a great idea but not for the price of losing the ease of use! If one button helps to replace 4 clicks with one click, then it's a worthy button [imho].

[Jan Gruuthuse]

You are aware there is a big time deficit on developing side.
Let see what the developer(s) do? Maybe sometime in the (near) future, like tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade, ... .
After all I'm a basic user.

[eumagga0x2a]

Then make them point to the beginning and the end of the video with one button (actually, bring them to the state they are when the program has just been loaded). By now, we go to the beginning, click A, go to the end, click B, and these are 4 actions instead of one when we need to select the complete footage.

These actions (pressing Pos1, Ctrl+PgUp, End, Ctrl+PgDown) take 2 seconds max (if someone is super slow). This wouldn't justify any effort.

However, these steps don't exactly restore the initial values of the markers (zero for A, the total duration for B). Most videos don't start at zero, so setting marker A initially to zero is strictly speaking invalid. The same applies to marker B, which is initially set to a time sometimes quite far after the last frame. You have a point in the sense that Avidemux doesn't offer GUI for resetting the markers to these, often illegal initial values. Funny enough, this limitation is used by some logic in the application as a way to detect if markers were moved by the user or not.

[eumagga0x2a]

Nevermind, pull request filed.

[Jan Gruuthuse]

@acritum this could be your lucky day, wait and see.

[acritum]

These actions (pressing Pos1, Ctrl+PgUp, End, Ctrl+PgDown) take 2 seconds max (if someone is super slow). This wouldn't justify any effort.

I was in love with keyboard shortcuts when I was using MS-DOS, but Windows makes people kind of lazy. Imagine a user laying on a sofa with a notebook upon his stomach and a wireless mouse in his hand. He controls the system only with the the mouse 99% of the time so he became too lazy to stretch his hand towards the keyboard and press a button. It's a typical Windows user. I know, you Linux guys are of different nature. You spend your life in console and use keyboard 99% of time and only rarely take the mouse in your hand. Of course, shortcuts make you happy, you have 835 shortcuts in your mind for every possible need in your life. I tried to live in Linux maybe 10 years ago but it didn't last long because there were no drivers for my printer, scanner and other rare equipment such as a camera, pocket PC, power meter, digital multimeter with usb out for logging and so on (suppliers of many rare gadgets never make any drivers for Linux), and I had to load Windows too often anyway to work with the equipment. Some powerful software such as Adobe Premiere or 3DS Max don't have Linux versions as well and I need Windows to work with them. Finally, it was too inconvenient to live in 2 OSes and switch between them several times every day, so I gave up using Linux. After good cleaning and configuration, Windows 7 is fast enough on my 10-years old ASUS notebook, runs all modern software and stable enough to rely on.

Another reason why I don't like some shortcuts is that my notebook has a shortened keyboard without a numeric pad and you may break your fingers to press some shortcuts unless you are a certified piano player The lack of numeric pad is compensated by the Fn button with some keys in the middle of the keyboard labeled with a very dark blue color on the black background, and it is surely not faster and easier to use them than clicking on a software button. For example, Ctrl-Shift-NumMinus becomes Ctrl-Shift-Fn-P. This is a rare type of keyboards of course and the developers should not take it into consideration, I'm just sharing my experience that shortcuts are not always faster and easier way to do something. If it replaces a bulk of 5 actions, I would probably use it, but if it replaces a button that lays on the screen before my eyes, I'd rather prefer clicking the button. The only exception is made for the shortcuts that are the same in all programs such as Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-S, Ctrl-Q. All these buttons are close to each other and can be easily pressed with one hand and closed eyes. But if I need to press Ctrl-Home, I will think twice because I'll have to put the mouse off and free the right hand and stretch it to the keyboard, thus loosing more time and calories /grin/  than when just moving the mouse pointer to some button or menu item.

What I write here is just a set of my thoughts. I don't request or demand anything, just writing here my thoughts about the software. I know that some developers are willing to know the weak points of their software from the POV of a typical user. I'm not a pro as you, but also not a dummy who bought a PC just yesterday. I'm dealing with computers since MS-DOS 5.0 on IBM PS/2 Model 30 with 21Mb HDD and 640Kb RAM.  I also was in programming for DOS (Turbo Pascal) and Windows (Delphi). I know users sometimes asked to improve my software by adding strange things that I never needed but finally it's the developer who decides what will be implemented and when. Of course, if I knew that the software crashes for unknown reasons, I would spend time on finding the solution rather than on adding some stupid buttons that only duplicate existing shortcuts. Anyway, thanks for all your efforts, this community seems to be surprisingly alive and active, this is why Avidemux became so powerful.

[eumagga0x2a]

Those who prefer or have to rely on mouse would be able to reach their goal with two clicks if the patch gets accepted. My concern about a function which extends markers to include an appended video relying on markers still at their initial locations seems to be unfounded: the new ability to reset markers is well aligned with this design IMVHO and doesn't result in unexpected or confusing behaviour.