---
author: ''
category: ''
date: 2009/10/23 23:27
description: ''
link: ''
priority: ''
slug: BB845
tags: kde, open source, programming, pyqt, python, qt
title: '24-hour app #1: Die Schere, a video editor'
type: text
updated: 2009/10/23 23:27
url_type: ''
---
I have long known that application development is an arduous process.
I have also long suspected one of the reasons it's arduous is the developer. 
I should be more specific, **I** am one of the reasons.

That's because I don't know what I am doing, and I don't mean that in the 
"I am a lame programmer" sense (even if that's also true somewhat), but
in the sense that I **literally** don't know what the app should look like,
or what its feature set should be.

So, I have decided to embark on a series of experiments I will call 24-hour apps.

Here are the rules:

* I shall create a neat application, stable, useful, usable and decent-looking.

* I shall do it in no more than 24 hours. After that time, it should be at least
  good enough for a preview release, if not a beta.

* Those 24 hours can be split in two or three sessions

* Time spent doing icons, docs, etc, counts.

* All development shall be public (I am using `github <http://github.com/ralsina/24-hour-apps>`_)

* I **must** have a use for the resulting application, and it should be
  at least an adequate solution for that problem.

So, what's the first project? I call it Die Schere (The Scissors in german) and 
it's a video editor.

It's not a kdenlive replacement, it's just the video editor I wish I had when I 
needed to glue a piece of one video with a piece of another.

In the old, pre-digital world, that was done using a cutter and scotch tape. I want
Die Schere to be as useful and comprehensible as that was, but useful for clumsy
people like myself.

Here is a video after today's session, which lasted 8 hours:

.. raw:: html

   <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTaiP11A-dY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTaiP11A-dY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

The basic functions are there, even if lots of work is still needed.

* You can load clips to work with them

* You can cut clips (like using a cutter!)

* You can choose the cut points interactively or by editing a time

* You can arrange them (like using scotch tape!)

* You can generate the output video

As a backend it's using mencoder, but there's no reason it shouldn't 
work with ffmpeg or melt if someone writes 20 lines of code.