Timeline
The timeline is where the actual video editing is done.
Zooming
Zooming in and out can be done by use of the mouse wheel.
Hold CTRL, then use the wheel to adjust the zoom level.
Furthermore, the '-' and '=' keys can be used to zoom out/in.
Hold CTRL when pressing one of these keys to go to the minimal/maximal zoom levels.
Note:
When zooming, the video frame centered in the timeline is kept centered in the timeline.
An exception to this rule applies if the horizontal scrollbar is in its leftmost position.
In that case, the scrollbar remains in the leftmost position when zooming in/out.
The vertical red line is the 'cursor'. It indicates what frame is currently shown in the Preview.
If keyboard actions are used for modifying the sequence, this cursor position indicates where/what to edit.
The cursor is positioned by moving the mouse somewhere in the timeline, but not over any clips and or dividers,
and then pressing the left mouse button.
For making a first selecting for what material (not to) use, region marking can be used.
Regions can be marked in two ways:
- While playback is active, pressing down shift starts a region. The region is extended up to the cursor position until shift is released.
- While playback is not active, regions can be added/removed by shift dragging the cursor (press mouse to move cursor and then hold shift while moving the mouse).
Note that, when marking regions during playback, the begin/end positions of the regions can be slightly different from the positions at which shift was pressed/released.
The reason for this behaviour is that after seeing interesting video data, the user will always press the shift button 'too late'. To accomodate for this, the begin position is put a bit earlier.
This behaviour can be changed via the options dialog.
Drag and drop
Clips can be dragged and dropped 'around' the timeline.
New clips can be dragged in from the project view as well.
Finally, supported file types can be dropped from the file system.
Clipboard
Cut, Copy and Paste (main menu Edit) works on clips in the timeline. For this to work,
the timeline must be focused (click in the timeline - anywhere - to give it the focus).
Files copied into the clipboard from the Project View can be pasted into the timeline.
Files copied into the clipboard from the file manager can be pasted into the timeline.
Note that pasting clips/files via the main Edit menu (or via the shortcut key CTRL-V)
is always done adjacent to the timeline cursor position.
Pasting from the popup menu is done at the position where the popup menu was opened.
Selecting clips
Clips are selected by clicking on them. If a video (audio) clip has a related audio (video) clip, that clip is selected as well.
Control: select multiple clips, one after the other.
Shift: select all clips 'in between' two clips.
Alt: select from a clip until the end.
Cut at cursor position
Press the "s" key to make a cut (accross all video and audio tracks) on the position of the cursor.
Trimming clips and transitions
Clips are trimmed (shortened/enlarged) by moving the mouse pointer of a cut between clips,
pressing the left mouse button and then adjusting by moving the mouse pointer.
Transitions are trimmed similarly, by moving the mouse pointer on their begin/end positions.
Quite often it is desirable to shorten a clip by trimming it, without leaving empty space after the trim.
If that is required, hold shift while trimming. All other clips are moved accordingly.
This method also works when enlarging a clip: If there's no room in front of the clip, but you still want
to enlarge it, hold shift when trimming and see what happens.
Note that during the trimming operation a preview of the trim is show in the preview window.
It shows the two frames to the left and right of the resulting cut.
Snapping
For drag and drop operations, the two snap options (View → Snap to cursor, and View → Snap to clips) can be enabled.
If they are, than drag and drop operations are adjusted such that the closest distance between any of the cuts between the dragged
clips and any of the cuts in the sequence will 'snap' together. I guess it's better to just try this then to try and understand that
last sentence....
Snapping currently does not work for trimming.
Creating transitions
Creating transitions can be done in two ways:
- Right click on any clip and select the required transition from the popup menu.
- Move the mouse pointer to a cut between clips and press 'c'. This creates a crossfade if there are two adjacent clips. This creates a fade in/fade out in case there is one clip alongside some empty space. Note that this also works for audio clips.
Adding tracks
New tracks can be added by selecting Sequence → New video track and/or Sequence → New audio track.
Titles
Titles (text overlayed on the video) can be added by adding PNG or TIFF files to the Project View and then
adding these to the timeline. Areas that are transparent in the PNG/TIFF file will remain transparent when creating the video.