[Bf-committers] "Blender, an appraisal from a first time user"

[Xavier Thomas]

I think the user is refering to the message you recieve when opening a non
blender file with the main blender "Open..." (wm.open_mainfile) operator
and not when opening it in the image editor or clip editor or compositor or
sequencer (most first time users don't even know what those are).

This is a very common misshap for new user wating to edit video, they open
Blender, go to the menu File->Open-> deactive the extension filtering and
open an avi.

In this case Blender does not "crash to the desktop" but the import fails
gives an error message "File format not supported in filename.avi" which
gives the user the impression that importing the video fails. When in fact
he did not try to import a video but to open a blend file.



2016-01-03 10:53 GMT-02:00 Sergey Sharybin <sergey.vfx at gmail.com>:

> Hi,
>
> Crash should not happen, the file is to be submitted to the bug tracker.
>
> The file might not be supported by FFmpeg, in this case it should be
> relatively easy to improve the error message. It's also possible the file
> is simply encoded by proprietary codec which we can never enable for our
> builds.
>
> In any case, it'll help a lot having such file reported to the tracker.
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Here is a friendly mail from a Linux user I had. He failed using Blender
> > for a simple video task.
> > http://download.blender.org/institute/firsttime.pdf
> >
> > I'm happy that KDEnlive worked for him, and I explained to him that
> > Blender is an advanced 3D creation suite which you have to invest time in
> > to understand it well.
> >
> > Nevertheless, three lessons we can learn from this:
> >
> > 1) Meaningless tooltips
> >
> > The "System info" menu has as tooltip "Generate system info". That's
> > insufficient. It leaves very relevant information to the notifier button
> > that's very easy too miss.
> >
> > 2) Meaningless error message
> >
> > "Report Error. File format is not supported in...".
> >
> > What is that supposed to mean? Errors can easily give more details,
> > especially mentioning the function or operator that throws the error
> and/or
> > about the context or editor it is in.
> >
> > 3) Blender support section: Tutorials.
> >
> > http://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/
> >
> > There is no beginner tutorial on blender.org for newbies how to quickly
> > get a video edited.
> > Anyone knows one? Then I'll add it there.
> >
> > -Ton-
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------
> > Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
> > Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute
> > Entrepotdok 57A  -  1018AD Amsterdam  -  The Netherlands
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-committers mailing list
> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >
>
>
>
> --
> With best regards, Sergey Sharybin
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