A simple frontend application for FFMPEG made in Qt tending to have good UI/UX pratices based on Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things.

This project is conducted for the course "IHM-2017", at HEIG-VD, Switzerland.

• Teacher: Andres Perez-Uribe
• Authors: Ludovic Delafontaine, Sathiya Kirushnapillai & Mathieu Monteverde

FFMPEG is a powerful tool. However, it is mostly used by command line and as so, not really user-friendly.

As in the project will create a program to use some aspects of FFMPEG with a nice and user-friendly UI.

As FFMPEG has many many options, we will stay focused on the following elements:

• A menu item allowing to exit the application
• A button allowing to select an input video file
• A text field allowing to edit the name of the input file
• A button allowing to select an output video file
• A text field allowing to edit the showing the properties of the input file
• A field allowing the user to select the start time of the output video
• A field allowing the user to select the stop time of the output video
• A text field showing the command line which should run ffmpeg to cut the video

The UI must give feedback about the following points as well:

• Whether the input file is valid
• The duration of the input video
• The start and stop time selected
• The overlapping between start and stop

As FFMPEG is normally used by command line, it is mostly for powerusers. As we wanted to deliver a program that everyone can use, the users used to FFMPEG may find our application way too simplish and heavy.

This program has been tested on Mac OS and Linux with ffmpeg installed. It should work on Windows as well but has not been tested.

We decided to cut the whole process for cutting the video file into sequences. This allow the user to focus on one thing at a time and we can validate the step before continuing in the process.

We came to the following process:

• Introduction
• Choose the input file
• Set the start and end times for the given input file
• Choose the output file
• Summary and confirmation
• Result

For each step, we need to validate the step to allow the process to continue.

If there are errors, a message will be shown inside the layout to indicate what is wrong.

If the user presses more than two times the "Continue" button when there are errors, a more intrusive feedback will appear to ensure the user has seen the errors (pop-up, tooltip, etc.).

Here is an example where the user did some mistakes:

At every step, the user should be able to go back to edit previous steps.

This step presents the program, what is it for and general considerations.

This step allows the user to select the input file.

The following feedbacks will ensure that the user can continue to the next step:

• Can we access to the input file ?
• Is the input file valid ?

This step shows the input file properties and allows the user to select the start time and the end time to cut the video.

The following feedbacks will ensure that the user can continue to the next step:

• Is the start time inside the total length of the video file ?
• Is the stop time inside the total length of the video file ?
• Is the start time before the end time (no overlapping) ?

This step shows the input file with its cutting times and total time of the potential output video. The user can select the desired output file.

The following feedbacks will ensure that the user can continue to the next step:

• Can we access to the output file ?
• Is there any files that have the same name ?
• If there is a file with the same name, does the program alerts the user that he is about to override the file ?

This step shows the summary of the whole process:

• Input file with its properties
• Output file with the cutting and total times

The following feedbacks will ensure that the user can continue to the next step:

• None, only need to confirm or go back to edit something.

This step shows the FFMPEG's command line to launch to cut the input file to the new output file.

The user is invited to restart the process or exit the application.

• This application was made with Qt
• We used the C++14 standard to develop this program