Final Cut Assistant for Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Assistant is a freeware program available from Apple to help you make the most out of your Final Cut Pro system.  All the little annoying things you have to mess with in Final Cut Pro are all put together in a nice little package for you.  Functions included are listed here.





New Empty Project lets you avoid Untitled project files and unnamed sequences in your projects.  Use it everytime you start a project to name it.

Reset Final Cut Pro is like trashing your preferences.  Reset gets your user preferences back to their original state.

Restore from Backup allows you to choose from any of the available earlier versions of your User Settings.

The "Backup" that you are restoring is created when you "Save User Settings..." The Backup contains Window, Keyboard, Column, & Button Bar Layouts, as well as Favorites and User Preferences. This is much easier than saving each of these settings individually. The Backup is a .zip file located @ User/Backup/com.apple.FinalCutPro. The file name can be changed to a user's name for example. On a system where multiple editors use the the same OS user, this is a great way to maintain multiple User Settings. Personally I intend on coping the zip file to my iDisc so I always have access to my User settings.

 

Back Up Now backs up your User Settings

Deactivate Final Cut Studio allows you to deactivate it in order to move it onto another computer.  It removes licensing information without actually uninstalling Final Cut Studio.

Configure OS X for Final Cut Pro:  This is huge; sets your screen saver to never, and sets the hard disks to sleep never

The rest of the functions within the menu are pretty self-explanatory.  Even though all of these functions are available thru the Finder, it's nice to have them all wrapped up in a bow for you.

Once downloaded, Final Cut Assistant has it's own little icon in the Menu Bar for activation.



Final Cut Assistant is quite effective and will no doubt become part of your everyday editing process.