Rob, Let me also assure you that the current CinGG version is here to stay for as long as possible. But the QT6 version is a much needed update for modernization and to be more relevant for the upcoming generations who have learned the technology on better/faster computers with different expectations. For example, everyone these days uses Ctrl-z to undo their change whereas the default original in CinGG was just z (Ctrl-z was added later upon request) and Ctrl-q is expected as the shortcut for quit whereas the original CinGG just uses q. In addition, in case you never noticed this, an "alternative" shortcuts AppImage is available because there is no way to redefine keys in the original CinGG and this has been quite detrimental to many users; with the QT6 version, defining keys to suit the user will be possible. Also, the current CinGG intends to continue to work even on 32-bit and older Operating Systems, like Ubuntu 16, whereas QT6 is intended to work on the current latest version of operating systems. There will be a CinGG release on October 31 which includes the latest FFmpeg version 9 - although vaapi render formats will not be working yet. I will try to refer to the original CinGG as "classic cinelerra" and QT6 as "qt6 cinelerra". On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 10:45 AM Rob Prowel via Cin < cin@lists.cinelerra-gg.org> wrote:
I've been away for a while dealing with family stuff but I noted that the last AppImage of the traditional UI cinGG is from august and more recently the app has a Qt interface. I hope we are not seeing a switch from the traditional UI semantics, without continuing the power user functionality that existed for so long.
For a long time I considered that a UI based on a popular toolset was a good idea but abandonned that goal after looking at how heavily the old UI was embedded into the code. Qt was an obvious choice.
So don't get me wrong, I congratulate the author's update, but would like to point out a few issues that should be addressed.
* The traditional UI accepted immediate mode commands entered from the keybord. While possible in Qt, it seems that operational mode is not active in the current Qt version. When I type (q) on the timeline I want to see the "quit" dialog. Likewise, <shift>R should immediately pop up the render dialog.
* I understand the current popular "wayland" position that apps should each be managed by a single top level window and that somehow IPC between windows is a "cough cough" security bug...but! The workflow of content creation in a single window UI is greatly crippled by cramming everything in a single top level window. I contend that each major function: timeline, compositor, and asset-management should have their own independent top level window. I use a dual monitor configuration and need to be able to place function windows on independent monitors to space things out.
* color themes need to be better considered. The default theme is fine, but when you introduce a popup like the global settings over top of the full screen app window, the content gets lost in the haze. I'd contend that popups should use a different background color so their content becomes more ovbious.
* the new Qt UI is polished and very pretty. PLEASE, don't favor pretty fluff over power user functionality though. having to click a series of pulldown menus to reach a frequently used function is unpleasant. Sometimes keyboard commands are "better" than point and click.
* a bug that seems to be prevalent in cinGG is that upon opening a clip, the default timeline doesn't fully render the audio tracks, but only for about half of the visible clip. The full rendering doesn't take place unless I zoom in or out on the timeline time range.
Truth is that I am impressed with the Qt UI, but we need to maintain a aire of power user friendliness so that productivity doesn't take a backseat to asthetics. I've always maintained that WYSIWYG is a bad concept and I prefer, "you aksed for it, you got it!"
For now I'm hoping the traditional UI app continues to be the main dev branch and receives ALL fixes and enhancements for the foreseeable future.
On a final note I recently pulled down the full git repo and tried to do a default build (use cinGG 3rd party libs) but the "build install" fails with a recurve out of memory error when trying to install certain plugins: I think ladspa stuff?
-Rob
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