Grouping breaks apart when copying

Bug
1

What is your operating system?
Debian/linux (sid)

What is your Shotcut version (see Help > About Shotcut)?
24.11.18

Can you repeat the problem? If so, what are the steps?
I’m using V1 and A1.

  • insert clip
  • insert a color [video] (black, 3 seconds), with a separate audio track (1 second) starting at 0:01:00 [1 seconds] of the black
  • insert clip
  • group black and its audio
  • copy
  • select last clip, paste (probably the position marker shall be at the end as well)
  • repeat a few times
  • remove second clip (make an empty space)
  • select all clips and blacks after the blank with a selection rectangle
  • move them up to the end of the first clip

Now sometimes (maybe always, but it seems to depend on various things) the audio moves further forward by 3-4 seconds (probably same size as the movement) thus get desynced from the black.

When and where it happens it is grouped by the clip above, not the black.

I’ll try to reproduce it when I’m finished unscrewing my video cut. :wink:

2

Your subject line does not match your steps. “Group” is a specific feature in Shotcut, but the steps never mention it. Then, you say “copying” but the last step is moving.

Basically, you are saying that when you select multiple video clips and then move them (last 2 steps) causes one or some of the audio clips to move to an unexpected starting time.

You have Ripple mode AND Ripple All Tracks turned on image.
Ripple All Tracks is a frequently reported problem, but it is difficult for user to predict because there are many different cases and thus not recommended to leave on all of the time.
There are 3 ways to avoid this problem when moving clips:

  • turn off Ripple All Tracks and also select your clips on other tracks, or
  • with both Ripple and Ripple All Tracks turned on, do not select multiple clips. All that you need to do is drag the first one after the blank/gap. Ripple means all of the clips after the single selected clip are affected and moved along. Ripple All Tracks means the clips on the audio track that start at or after the selected clip are also affected and moved.
  • right-click the blank/gap and choose Ripple Delete. If Ripple All Tracks is also on then the audio clips are moved to match.

I do not plan to make any changes here because there is no way to make Ripple All Tracks behave as different people expect in all scenarios.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the reply!

It is in step #4 (“group black and its audio”), and the problem (misgrouping) is in my second to last sentence (“it is grouped by the clip above, not the black”).

You are right; it was movig, bad choice of words from me.

True, and that grouped black+audio have changed to clip+audio.

Unfortunately no, they are both switched off since they, as you amply have put it, caused lot of confusion.
I have only “snap” turned on.

I will try with various Ripples on, just for fun.

(Update: yes, with ripple the grouping stays intact, and the audio stays in sync, as designed.)

Maybe I should have Ripple All turned on. :roll_eyes:

Since I have not used Ripple I really wonder what do you think could have happened.
But I do not expect you to make changes based on my experience, I just wondered whether it’s a bug or some weird kind of user screwup.

What I wanted to do, without much experience (I rarely do video editing, so every time I have to re-learn it), that I have plenty of short clips and I put them together, after some trimming, and put a separator (black + bleep) between them. When it’s too long I remove some clips and fill the blanks, which obviously the best fit for ripple, but I thought it’s more logical to simply move all the clips.

(Offtopic: is there a way to mark or color clips in the clip list, or at least mark those which are already included in the timeline?)

4

I think one issue that seems related is that in Shotcut rectangle selection does not automatically include grouped clips. IOW, in your example, that rectangle you describe does not automatically include the audio clip that is grouped with the “blacks.” The normal behavior in that case is the audio does not move from its current position. But the only way I have reproduced “the audio moves further forward by 3-4 seconds (probably same size as the movement)” is with the Ripple All Tracks.
In any case, I will consider trying to make rectangle or multi-select automatically include all members of a group.

is there a way to mark or color clips in the clip list, or at least mark those which are already included in the timeline?

No, this is already requested, but there is currently no relationship between Playlist and Timeline except that they are both saved to a project. There is no linkage. And the definition of a “clip” in either can be different things to different people (playlist can also hold sub-clips or clips from the same source but with different filters or parameters). Given that, one thing you can do is to simply remove the playlist item once you have added it to the Timeline. You can always add it again later. FYI you can copy a timeline clip and add it to the playlist.

5

I accepted this report for this particular issue as well as the literal subject line. Because I also found that when you paste a copied group it did not copy the group attribute: The newly added clips are not grouped. (Also for Overwrite and Append actions.) Note to self: if only a single member of a group was copied the group attribute should not be copied.

1 Like
6

What I did was starting from the top and reordering the playlist to move clips after the well visible color clip, because I repeatedly used them for reordering, which was easier (or at least more natural for me) than moving clips from timeline back to the playlist.

There could be a very simple color tagging, like manually setting the background color of the playlist item. Could be useful for categorising my own item list as well for any else purpose. (I think OpenShot has “bins” which basically suit the same purpose.)