![]() “Well, it won’t go back down, and I can’t see my Clips any more.” What do you call the thingie that comes out of the top?” “Well, when I click a blue button, another thingie comes out of the top of the…what did you call it?” “Yeah, yeah, the Effects and Sound Palette, so what’s your problem?” “I’m having a problem with that…that thingie on the lower right, the gray thingie with the blue buttons…” That palette, by the way, is not identified in iMovie Help or Balloon Help or in any of Apple’s literature on the subject, which makes people feel even more like idiots when calling for support. The Titles button is found on the Effects and Sound Palette, that little brushed aluminum button collection below the Clips Shelf. Here are iMovie Help’s instructions on how to add titles in iMovie. These folks don’t consider the brushed aluminum interface to be “intuitive,” and why should they? They follow instructions well, but the Help file is overly succinct for a novice. The iMac (including the iMac DV, of which I’m a proud owner) is being pushed to first-time computer owners. I would have played around with the software until I reached the point of thinking, “That was fun, I can do this, now let’s see what I need to know to do this well.”īut I’m not typical of Apple’s market for this product. Golly, I’m so hip that if iMovie: The Missing Manual had been included with iMovie, I wouldn’t have opened the book for several hours. ![]() If you’re hip to Mac OS 8 or above, you can get by with the tutorial, the Help file, and some trial and error. You can call it up from the Help menu in iMovie, and it’ll have you saying, “This is great! This program is so simple, it doesn’t need documentation!”Īnd you can hang on to that thought until the first time you need more info.Ĭompared to other video editing programs, iMovie is amazingly easy to use. iMovie Help is nicely laid out, it’s simple to navigate through (you just click on subjects in the Table of Contents, or type in a topic and hit the Search button). The tutorial is embedded in the iMovie Help file, so it’s as close as your Help Viewer. It gives the user a strong feeling of, “If they can do it, I can do it.” Two kids washing a dog, handheld camera staggering around, all as cute as a bunny and twice as smart. The iMovie Tutorial is a confidence building masterwork. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it looks like just like a real home movie-not quite as nice as something you’d do, but as good as you’d expect from the family two doors down, you know, those nice folks with a few extra bucks but not a lot of imagination or originality. In brief, David got blindsided by Apple.Īpple provides an interactive tutorial with iMovie. There’s no software hungrier for its Missing Manual than iMovie, and this book fills the bill admirably.īrilliant concept, admirably executed-so why does iMovie: The Missing Manual rate a Very Nice instead of an Excellent? For reasons beyond the author and publisher’s control. The series provides hard copy documentation for otherwise undocumented (or sketchily documented) software, and under-documented software seems to be the latest rage in the computer biz. The whole “Missing Manual” concept is brilliant. ![]() To quote Dizzy Dean, it ain’t braggin’ if you done it. With characteristic humility, author/publisher David Pogue describes this as “the book that should have been in the box,” and, well, yeah, he’s right. Requirements: iMovie software, iMac DV or other FireWire-equipped Mac. ![]() Developer: Pogue Press/O’Reilly and Associates ![]()
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