I thought about a new feature that could be added for Shotcut’s timeline. When you place the mouse on an empty space in the timeline where they are clips to the left and/or right and right click the “Remove” option comes up. How about adding right under “Remove” an option called something like “Move To Playhead”?
The way that this would work is that the selected clip would move to wherever the playhead is currently positioned at. So if you highlight a clip, then place the playhead someways away from the clip to its left and select “Move To Playhead” then the clip will move and stop where the playhead is. If the playhead is placed anywhere at the highlighted clip’s right side, then the clip moves towards the right up to the playhead. If this can be added then it’d be nice to also have this work in conjunction with the “Ripple All Tracks” option to move many clips at one time up to a specific desired location in the timeline whether that be to the left or the right side.
As of now, moving clips around like this can be done either by manually moving them or by creating a “dummy clip” as suggested in this thread. My suggestion would skip all of that extra work and be a real time saver during the workflow.
This is not at all a bad idea. However, what should happen if the selected clip does not fit in the blank space right of the playhead? Should the clip’s out point be trimmed to make it fit, should it overwrite the following clip(s), or should it push (ripple) the following clip(s). The latter two could be determined by using the Ripple toggle on the toolbar. However, is there might be a case for the automatic trim. Your thoughts? Keep in mind, that I am thinking of all use cases where the selected clip can be any clip including from another track. Alternatively, the context menu item could also only appear when the selected clip is a neighbor of the blank space, which would make the left vs. right behavior easier for the user to understand (and no trim or overwrite required).
How about having two options in the menu, or as sub-options?
Say selecting “Move to Playhead”
could generate a sub-menu of
“Move & truncate clips(s)
Move and preserve clip(s)?”
I do like that idea. I’m just wondering what would happen if the playhead was positioned so it intersected a clip (either by accident or on purpose) when “move to playhead” was selected. Would the selected clip overlap and overwrite the clip at the playhead point? Overall though, I would vote for this. It would simplify the cutting out unwanted space at the beginning of a project, certainly.
Yeah, that’s exactly how I was imagining it. The “Move To Playhead” option would only appear if the playhead is in a blank space in relation to the highlighted clip. It would not appear if the playhead is positioned on top of a clip even if another clip on the timeline is highlighted. It’s exactly how the current “Remove” option only appears when the playhead is in a blank space on the timeline in relation to the highlighted clip. That’s why my suggested “Move To Playhead” feature would be a natural added option under the current “Remove” option.
I didn’t imagine it for trimming existing clips during movement. As I think about it now, it could complicate matters and get messy. Basically, my suggested feature would have the clips behave in the same way that they do now when using the “dummy clip” method when wanting to move clips at a specific distance except that with “Move To Playhead” it’s all according to where the playhead is as long as it’s in an empty space.
Ditto on the vote for this idea. Any functionality that makes moving clips in the timeline easier is welcome. As has been mentioned on this forum before - a facility to insert empty space into a timeline or track, and the ability to select multiple items would also help make the timeline a more flexible workspace and speed up the work flow of many users.
Yeah, I have seen the request to select multiple items and do things like be able to drag them around. I don’t remember what the status is on that though. However, if my idea would be implemented right then this could be a good alternative to dragging multiple tracks around. You would just make sure to have the “Ripple All Tracks” option selected before selecting “Move To Playhead”. If there are any clips on another video and/or track you don’t want moved just make sure to lock that track before choosing “Move To Playhead”.
Just another suggestion: Maybe you should also modify the name of the “Remove” option to “Remove Gap” just to make it clearer especially with the upcoming new option that is going to be added?
It occurred to me that first I need to implement ripple support when moving a clip (on the same track). When that is done there really is no need for these menu items.
Ripple support for moving clips was added to v18.09. I will mark this as solved for now as I think this new feature is overall more valuable (there are more use cases for moving clips) and the original request not needed.
