2. Understanding the Movie Maker User Interface
Windows Live Movie Maker is divided into
three basic areas from top to bottom: the new ribbon interface at the
top, which replaces the old menu and toolbar; the Preview pane on the
left, and the Contents pane on the right. As shown in Figure 3, these areas are clearly delineated.
This is the first version of Windows Live Movie
Maker to utilize a ribbon interface, but you're probably familiar with
it from newer versions of Microsoft Office and, of course, the new
Paint and WordPad versions that are included in Windows 7. Basically,
it combines the functions that used to appear in separate menus and
toolbars, and presents them in a more graphical and discoverable way.
The Movie Maker ribbon is quite simple, especially compared to the
complex ribbons you sometimes see in Office. It features just three
tabs: Home, Visual Effects, and Edit. We'll examine these as
appropriate going forward.
Another change related to the ribbon is the new
truncated File menu that appears if you click the Application menu
button—the dark-blue box in the upper-left corner of the application
window. This displays Windows Live Movie Maker's only true menu, as
shown in Figure 4,
though to be fair there's nothing in there that can't be accessed
otherwise. (Even the Options dialog is empty at this point, though
presumably Microsoft has big plans for future versions.)
Previous versions of Movie Maker offered a Tasks
pane for stepping through the tasks needed to bring a custom video
production to life. However, with the single-minded nature of Windows
Live Movie Maker comes a much simpler way to work. You simply import
content, position that content in the order in which you want it to
appear, optionally apply a limited range of visual effects and titles,
and then output your creation to disk and, usually, a Web-based video
sharing site like MSN Soapbox or YouTube.
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Note that the Preview pane is resizable, so you can
alternatively increase the size of the video output and decrease the
size of the Contents pane, and vice versa, as needed. This is shown in Figure 5.
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