Moving Trays to Adjust Timing and Reorganize a Show

The position of each tray in the Action Area defines both the sequence of media sources and the time at which each effect will be triggered and thereby introduce the media source into the show. Hovering the mouse pointer over a tray displays a little popup dialog indicating its exact trigger time. For a slightly rougher indication of a tray's timing, you can check its position relative to the tick mark ruler on its left.

Vlog It! provides several ways to reposition trays to achieve the desired sequence and timing of events.

Content recorded with Vlog It! does not move: If you move a camera tray after you've recorded that segment, the recorded audio and video does not move with it. Pre-recorded video clips do move, but not content that you recorded directly into the project with a tray containing a camera. So if you need to insert content in the middle of a show, your best bet is to squeeze the new content trays in between the trays where you want to do the insertion, click the Pause button before hitting Record, and then use Next Effect to advance to the next tray when you're ready. This could be a bit tricky, and you won't have the teleprompter to help you since it stops scrolling when the Pause button is enabled. Another alternative that might be easier to manage in the long run is to record the insertion content in a separate project, publish Part A & Part B, and then drop the resulting clips into a third project. In the simplest case, you'd have three trays: Part A / Part B / Part A, with the two Part A segments trimmed appropriately -- the first one with the end trimmed off, the second one with the beginning trimmed. If you have an NLE, you might find it easier to edit the segments together through that program.

Allow time for each effect to finish: It's rarely if ever desirable to position a tray so close to the preceding tray that the previous effect does not have time to finish running. The typical result of such a conflict is that the previous effect will snap to its finished state for an instant before the one that cut it off begins running. The quickest, easiest, and surest way to avoid this type of conflict is to use the Smart Position feature.

Scroll Speed also affects timing: The position of trays in the Action Area is only half of the equation determining when events happen in Vlog It! The other half is the teleprompter's scroll speed. Adjusting that value changes how fast the teleprompter and Action Area scroll upwards, but it doesn't automatically adjust the position of your action trays. That's why we recommend dialing in the scroll speed to a comfortable level before adding content and setting the timing of events by moving action trays. If you adjust the scroll speed after positioning your trays, you will most likely have to reposition them.

Clicking and Dragging

Single Tray

The easiest way to move a tray is to click on its tab or frame and drag it to the desired position. If you drag a bit beyond the top or bottom of the Action Area, it will scroll in the appropriate direction.

Multiple Trays

To move a selected set of trays, hold the CTRL key while clicking each tray you wish to move—selected trays will become highlighted. When you've selected all trays of interest, release the CTRL key, click any of the selected trays, and drag in the desired direction. (If you include a tray by mistake, you can remove it from the set by clicking it a second time with the CTRL key still depressed.)

To move a given tray and all trays below it, hold down the Shift key while clicking and dragging the topmost of the trays you wish to move.

Cut, Copy, and Paste

While the click-and-drag method allows you to scroll to any position in a show, it may be faster in some situations to cut or copy one or more trays to the clipboard and paste them in the desired position. This approach also works for reproducing a set of trays in another show.

Single Tray

  1. Right-click the tray's tab or frame and select either Cut this Action if you want to remove the tray from its current position or Copy this Action if you want to leave this tray in place and make one or more copies of it.
  2. Scroll to where you want to paste the tray.
  3. Right-click a blank spot in the Action Area and select Paste Action.

Multiple Trays

  1. Hold the CTRL key while clicking each tray you wish to move—selected trays will become highlighted. (If you include a tray by mistake, you can remove it from the set by clicking it a second time with the CTRL key still depressed.)
  2. Right-click the tab or frame and select of any of the selected trays and select either Cut Selected Actions if you want to remove them from their current position or Copy Selected Actions if you want to leave them in place.
  3. Scroll to where you want to paste the set of trays.
  4. Right-click a blank spot in the Action Area and select Paste Actions. Be sure there's plenty of space for all the trays; if there isn't, Vlog It! will intersperse the pasted trays in or around whatever trays already exist in that area, rather than moving the trays below to make room for the transplanted ones.

Auto-Positioning the Next Tray —The Smart Position Feature

One of the fine points that sets a well-executed video apart from the pack is precise timing of events such that a) no action cuts off the preceding one, and b) no "dead air" pauses occur between actions. Such timing issues are especially crucial with video clips as well as some non-transitional effects because they have a defined duration; they are typically less of an issue with standard transitional effects that have an open-ended duration.

Manually calculating and executing such precise timing can be a challenge—one that you needn't confront with Vlog It! thanks to its Smart Position feature. It does all the math for you and moves the next tray to the exact position where its action will begin just as the previous one ends. All position of all trays below the next one are adjusted accordingly to maintain the same timing between all subsequent actions.

To use this feature, right-click the tray's tab or frame and select Smart Position Next Action from the pop-up menu.

Add Lower Third after Smart Positioning: If a video clip will be accompanied by a Lower Third, run the Smart Position feature before adding the Lower Third tray. Otherwise, that's the tray that will be pushed down to the end of the video clip, which is almost certainly not your intent. If the Lower Third is already in position, you can either cut the tray or move it above the associated video clip while you run Smart Position.

Rapid Fire Action Sequences

The minimum spacing between any two trays is 9 frames, or about a third of a second. Such tight timing allows you to fire a series of actions in rapid succession or to have a text overlay or audio track trigger almost simultaneously with the associated media source. To achieve short intervals between trays, simply overlap them.

If the overlapped trays interfere with keeping track of what's in the trays, you can shrink them vertically by right-clicking on the tab or frame and selecting Collapse Tray from the pop-up menu. To return a collapsed tray to full size, select Expand Tray.