An inline help system for the compositing software NUKE A

Abstract

The project aims to develop an inline user manual system for the compositing software NUKE. In NUKE, the compositing operations are performed by using graphical node-form UI elements. Unlike time-based editing like Adobe Premier Pro, it functions as a node based editing software thus it is not easy to comprehend. New users often face difficulties handling it especially understanding the flow of the node and code syntax. Currently help information could only be access through the help function from the menu bar. However it does not provide dedicated and comprehensive information to the user. User had to click on web link which would redirect them to an external web that contains the user manual. This process is time consuming and inefficient thus the help panel would simplify this process and user would have access to help at ease. In our proposed system the user would click once on a node and its help attributes would appear in the help window. This system could also accommodate user added elements like web-links, tutorial videos etc. One way to approach it would be to implement a NUKE panel in Python + qt with one webkit widget to display the current information from the reference manual and another to display the custom user-defined stuff from the source (web page, database, files) where the videos, links, notes are stored. The fundamental section of the project is to create the dock able help panel in the workspace and add-ons panel could be implemented as optional functions in the future.