UI part 2.
Note that these are more like lecture notes then a stand alone tutorial

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This is what you will get if you double click on the footage layer.

First the commmon buttons:
-The play back buttons are like any other program. If you click on the end frame, or where it says "300" it will change to read the time in seconds rather then frames. Clicking on the icon above and to the right of 300 will toggle wheather it loops, plays forward or backwords.
The gauge on the bottom right shows how much ram is being used. You can right click on it to flush chash. You can also change the amount of ram that combustion can use in File>Preferences.
The "preview" botton changes the viewport render quality. Feedback turns off play back in the viewport
Im not going to go over tracker or audio, if your interested use the manual.
Time line brings up the F-curves as well as dope sheet. Be aware that it will be differnt with differnt layers selected. I do most of my time work with the composit layer selected

Footage controls:
For the most part these do not need to be explained. All of these numbers only deal with the incoming footage. For example if you tell it that the image has an aspect ratio of 1:1 when really its 4:3 it will be streached out to fit. If you click the output button it will bring up the rez and cropping numbers. I normaly do scaling and postion changes with the transform node. The only thing I use reagularly is the reverse fottage button. The play back speed can also be changed in this menu, The frame blending button basicly does a cross fade between 2 frames for every extra frame that it puts in. I have found that this function works well.

This next one is from the transform node. I normaly only use the Layer and transform menus. Under output there are more playback options. You will find that adjusting the rez numbers in diffent layers will have a differnt effect on the footage. In this case it will simply crop the image.

Under transform you have all the footage manipulation controls. If your not sure what they meen, (like shear) try them out. The word proportional just means scale uniform.
The little R beside each word zeros it out. (reasets it) Normaly though i simply select the transform node and then drag the layer in the veiwport rather then mess with the numbers directly.

Under layer you will find blending options. Like change the layer to overlay or soft light. As well as opacity settings.

This next menu is the timeline

On the left you have all your opperators and layers. Any number that is keyable can be ajusted here. In this case Ihave Changed the opacity and set two keys for it. The show up as the white squares. you can move them back and forth through time by sliding them. This is the same as the dope sheet in any animation program. If something looks wrong with your timeline check to see what layer your on. I got to this by first double clicking on the composit layer. Also you may try closing some of the operations down in the left menu.
You can click on the end of the bars to stretch out footage. If you change the duration of a clip you will sometimes have to stretch it out here again for it to work.

If you want to get at the F-curvers click on the Overview button and set it to graph editor. You can change the tangents in the overview by selecting the keys and changing the Interpolation. But you may want to set them by hand. (I find that by looking at them some problems with timing become clear)