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MillimeterReview: GridIron Software Flow
Jul 6, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Workflow program maps project file relationships across multiple computers and professional software apps.
Flow prevents deletion of a file that's included in an Apple Final Cut Pro project.
Results here will vary based on the amount of information preserved in the project file. For example, I had hopes that Flow would tell me the location of all the files that I had input into a PowerPoint file so that I could more easily convert the presentation into a web page. No joy. I'd have to guess it's because PowerPoint doesn't track that information. On the other hand, Flow easily found all the image files that helped compose multiple InDesign documents that I tested, as well as the source files for Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro projects that I tested.
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Flow performs backtrack scanning when you first load the file into Flow, which can take several minutes with complex files. Because the program presented no status message along the lines of "Scanning file, please wait," I thought the program had frozen, though inevitably it returned to life. Note that you can avoid this problem by having Flow search your hard drives for compatible files and perform backtrack scanning in one fell swoop, though this will take a while if you have a lot of projects. What Flow can't do during backtrack scanning is tell you how much time you spent creating the project unless it can find this information in the project file, which, even for Microsoft Word, it couldn't.
Beyond backtrack scanning, once you install Flow, a small (30KB for Windows) process remains in the background, tracking activity for all supported project files and saving it to a Flow-specific database. This is how Flow tracks how long you worked on a particular project. Note that Flow still appears to depend upon the project file for source-file information; specifically, even after installing Flow, it still didn't track the identification or location of source graphics files for a new PowerPoint file. I'll just have to get better organized.
Of course, if you're reading this magazine, chances are you don't make your money creating PowerPoint files. When it comes to video content creation with professional programs, Flow really shines. More on this after I detail a few configuration options.
Configuring Flow
I hear you thinking, "This time-keeping stuff sounds great, but what happens when I'm off checking email, or leave for lunch and leave the project file open?" Well, you can tell Flow to stop the recording time after a configurable idle time; I used the default of 5 minutes. What about rendering time, which can be quite lengthy for many projects? It's currently included with all other project-related activities, but a future version of Flow should give you the option to either include or exclude rendering time from the total project-creation time.
What about projects for which multiple users contribute to the end result from different workstations? You can create shared maps that multiple users of Flow can access, and the content-creation time invested by each participant is added to the global project.
Here's how it works. Imagine you (or someone else on the team) creates a script for a video project in Word on computer 1. Then you shoot the project and capture and edit on computer 2 using Premiere Pro, which integrates project components from Photoshop and After Effects that were produced on the same computer. Then you edit the audio using Adobe Soundbooth on computer 3 (I know, you'd rather use Adobe Audition. Me too. Maybe a later version of Flow will incorporate Audition). All three computers have Flow installed.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
