Kdenlive fundraising final report
From 6th to 10th of September 2024, part of the Kdenlive Team was in Germany to attend the annual KDE convention Akademy and used that opportunity of being together at the same location to have a sprint. It was good to meet face to face and to sit down and tackle some issues together. One of the topic discussed was improving our communication towards users, so here is a much needed update on the status of our fundraiser! This post should have been published a few months earlier but there were so much things happening around Kdenlive that it was hard to follow, so sorry for the delay!
It’s been a bit more than 2 years since we launched our very successful fundraiser. This allowed us to fund some much wanted features, and as a side goal, allowed me to spend more time on Kdenlive. Thanks to your donations, I will be able to dedicate two days per week to Kdenlive instead of one. Note that this only sponsors part of my work as I spend much more time to Kdenlive, but hopefully this will relieve some stress and I will have a healthier weekly rhythm.
During this time, there were around 1,900 commits to the Kdenlive repository, meaning about 3.8 commits per day! We didn’t take that much vacation, did we? Also worth noting is that we handled the port to Qt6 during that time, which was a big task and took a lot of effort.
So now for the status of the fundraiser, here is what has been done so far and what is left. All major things were implemented in the 24.12 release so that we can move on to our next goals soon.
Timeline Nesting
已合併至 23.04
This was by far the biggest update since 2019, and can now be enjoyed by all (we recommend using the upcoming 24.12.2 version for the best experience). What remains for this task is to do some code cleanup that will be done in the 24.12 cycle. On a side note, the feature was merged too early and caused some annoying instabilities that are now solved. And I promise we are working to improve our development processes.
改善效果作業流程
Several changes were made to improve the user experience and make our effects more powerful.
群組效果
已合併至 24.05
Ability to control the parameters affecting all effects within the group.
內部效果
已合併至 24.12
The effects panel gives direct access to effect parameters, allowing to quickly and easily adjust them.
更多緩動模式
已合併至 24.02
In addition to the existing easing modes (linear, smooth, and constant), we’ve added several new options like: Cubic In/Out, Exponential In/Out, Circular In/Out, Elastic In/Out, and Bounce In/Out for transitions and effects.
Transform effect improvements
The Transform effect now has a monitor grid to easily align clips – merged in 24.12
讓素材可以直接從預覽視窗選取 - 已合併至 24.08
Redesigned effects interface
已合併至 24.12
The Effect Stack redesign enhances usability with clearer organization of keyframeable and non-keyframeable parameters, improved layout consistency, more compact and clean.
說明按鈕
已合併至 24.12
Added a contextual help button in the effect / transition stack which redirects to the effect’s documentation on our fantastic documentation website.
效能改善
Performance improvements is an always running task, but among some of the recent changes you will find:
- 空白區域工具速度提升 - 已合併至 24.05。空白區域工具之前移動超過 10 個素材時會非常緩慢，現在優化後它允許幾乎立即的移動
- 加快僅音訊或視訊的算繪 - 已合併至 24.08。在算繪傳遞給 MLT 的方式當中有一個小改進，讓時間軸預覽的算繪變得稍微快一點
- 改善對硬體編碼器的支援 - 清理並改善 GPU 偵測程式碼，用於時間軸預覽和代理素材 - 已合併至 23.08
- 最佳化時間軸 QML 程式碼的一部分 - 已合併至 24.05。我們現在對於畫面外的項目處理地更好
But wait, there’s more!
Thanks to your support we managed to achieve more than planned. We worked in improving our automated testing as well as hired third party developers for extra features.
Regression Testing
One thing we wanted for a long time was a way to automatically check for rendering regressions. We are now entering the final phase of this automated tests and it will soon be run automatically. Hopefully this will make future releases more stable and avoid some of the issues we had in the last years!
音訊波形升級
merged for 25.04
The next major release of Kdenlive brings a 300% performance boost for generating audio thumbnails, along with higher-resolution waveforms for greater precision and a refactored sampling method that accurately renders the audio signal. This work was done by Étienne Paul André, check out the in depth details about thew work done here.
OpenTimelineIO 整合
expected in 25.08
Darby Jonhston is working on implementing a native C++ OpenTimelineIO integration to allow importing and exporting project files to/from other applications implementing this open standard. This has many advantages over the currently existing but very broken Python adapter based OTIO integration.
匯出功能：
- Export a timeline with multiple tracks and clips. (working)
- Support for markers and guides. (working)
- Support for transitions. (not started)
匯入功能：
- Import a timeline with multiple tracks and clips. (working)
- Support for markers and guides. (working)
- Support for transitions. (not started)
What’s next
During our sprint in Germany, we also updated our roadmap so that it better reflects the current status of our development and goals. We have something big planned for this year so stay tuned.
On behalf of the team, we would like to thank you all for your support that helps make Kdenlive better every day!