Mewa Film User's Guide/Main window
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Contents |
[edit] Main Window
Mewa Film environment is very versatile. Centered on one main window, containing all different tools, the different windows can be moved around to different areas of the main window, can be docked and undocked, all to reduce clutter and increase efficient use of screen space.
You can get a quick explanation of a button by resting the mouse cursor over the button, this will make tool tip pop up.
[edit] File Menu
The file menu creates and loads projects. Projects keep record of work done.
| Menu | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
 New Project |
Ctrl+N | Closes the current project, if any, and creates a new project. |
 Open Project |
Ctrl+O | Select this option to open a project. |
 Open Footage |
Loads footage. See Managing footage for more details. | |
 Save Project |
Ctrl+S | Save the current project. It's disabled if no project loaded. |
| Quit | Ctrl+Q | Exit the application. |
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Mewa Film has a undo/redo feature that allows taking back any number of action steps, and redoing any number of previosuly undone steps. To undo the last action, one can either select the Edit >> Undo menu, or use the shortcut key Ctrl+Z. To redo the last undone action, one can either select the Edit >> Redo menu, or press the Ctrl+Shift+Z shortcut key.
| Button | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
 Undo |
Ctrl+Z | Undo last action. |
 Redo |
Ctrl+Shift+Z | Redo last undone action. |
| Preferences... | Open the preferences window. |
[edit] Standard toolbar
Standard toolbar includes actions from file and edit menus. Explanation of each button is detailed below.
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Mewa Film provides many views and windows as way to offer more flexibility to user and maximising the working area by showing and hiding different window as needed. Different windows can also be moved to different locations in the main window, or be detached from the main window, a very usefull feature if you have more than one monitor as the user can choose the windows to be shown on the second monitor.
The view too bar deals with the different windows of Mewa Film, showing/hiding windows, creating new windows and tabs.
| Button | Description |
|---|---|
 Footage window |
Show/hide footage window. More about footage window at chapter Managing footage. |
 Montage tab |
Creates a new montage tab. More about montage at chapter Editing with Montage. |
 Timeline |
Show/hide the timeline window. |
[edit] Nodes toolbar
The nodes toolbar holds a list of all available nodes organized by categories.
When a node is seleted from this list the correspondent node is added to the node graph. There are two kinds of nodes, 3D nodes in red and image processing nodes in green.
You can create your own nodes, to know how see chapter Extending Mewa Film with MFX files.
[edit] Player toolbar
The player toolbar allows you to navigate trough time, changing the current frame number. In the timeline and curve editor the current frame number is indicated by the play head.
The first field in the player tool bar is called timecode and indicates the current frame number. The current frame number can be displayed as frame number or time hours:minutes:seconds:frames. To jump to a specific frame, type the frame number, or time, into the timecode field, and press return key.
The playback buttons are explained in the table below,
 First frame |
Jump to first frame of time selection. |
 Previous frame |
Jump to previous frame. |
 Play/Pause |
Play and pause at project frame rate. |
 Next frame |
Jump to next frame. |
 End frame |
Jump to the last selection frame. |
The two end controls set the play range. The play range, like the name says, is used to select a smaller range in time to work with. They define how far the playhead advances when you use the playback buttons. Note that the player next frame and previous frame buttons only work when the playhead is within the selection range. If the playhead is located either before the selection first frame, or after the selection last frame, these buttons have no effect.
The playhead position can also be controlled from curve editor and timeline.
[edit] Help Menu
| Button | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
 Online Help |
F1 | Opens the default Web browser and loads this website. |
| About | Pop up a dialog with several information about the installed version of Mewa Film, including the version number and terms of use. | |
| MFX Files Info... | This is a advanced feature, it's purpose is to check errors on MFX files. MFX files are a solution to extend Mewa Film with custom nodes. Read more in chapter Extending Mewa Film with MFX files. | |
| System Info... | Opens a window with system information. This information is used to identify and measure system's capabilities. | |
| Check For Updates... | Establishes a connection to mewatools.com over internet to check if there are new versions of Mewa Film available. If there are a dialog window will appear asking permission to continue the update. If there are no updates available a simple message on status bar notifys there were no updates available. | |
| Register... | Register the software for commercial use. |
[edit] Dock windows
The timeline, curve editor, parameters windows and output windows are examples of dock windows. Dock windows can float or be docked in the main window.
[edit] Preferences window
To access the Preferences window, navigate to Edit >> Preferences.
The preferences window shows the different sections in the left.
[edit] Updates
Choose if the application check automatically for updates every time the applications starts. You can always check for updates through the help menu selecting Help >> Check For Updates.
[edit] Hardware
Choose the amount of memory that Mewa Film is allowed to use. Half the memory your computer has is a good amount.
