I am new user of shotcut here. I really liked the simplicity of the app. Its community is engaging in the forum and I also see tutorials about it on Youtube. I wanted to ask the community if they recommend using shotcut for creating tutorial videos or programming courses. The other editing tools like Camtasia and Democreator have pretty handy drag and drop options for editing. These are the topics I am making the comparison on:
transitioning
pan and zoom
remove/ blur background
cursor highlighting
cursor spotlight
cursor magnify
text animations
customizable lower thirds
annotations in boxes
line, arrow, shapes
openers and end credits
captioning
youtube subscribe, like animation media
stock media: audio, images, video
Is it possible that I can create something one time and make use of it in future projects like just drag and drop on the timeline?
The quick answer: Yes you can do all this with Shotcut.
And almost everything can be saved as a preset, including clips with multiple filters and keyframes.
Here’s an example:
I quickly made this very simple Like and Sub button using only Shotcut. No external images.
It uses two clips, one for the button and one for the cursor. The cursor is created with a text filter and a cursor font.
Select and Copy the button clip, paste it in a .txt file and save the file
Select and copy the cursor clip, paste it in a .txt file and save the file.
In any project, copy the content of each file and paste it to the timeline:
Maybe I made the Like & Sub button too quickly. It didn’t need two clips.
All the action can fit in one clip. Here’s the file: button&cursor.txt (5.7 KB)
Copy the content and paste it as a clip anywhere in the timeline
Thank you for this method that I did not know.
I personally use the .mlt format recording which I can then add to any project with the “Open MLT files as clip” command.
One of the advantages of this method is that, if needed, you can modify the filter settings and keyframes directly in the project. With the Open MLT files as Clip method you have to make the changes before importing and hope that you have the right settings.
You do not necessarily need to use text files and text editor. You can also simply run another instance of Shotcut, open an old project, and copy from it to paste into another project in the other Shotcut window.
True. That was just an example.
And that’s the best method for me. Starting another Shotcut instance, opening the right project and find the right clip takes time. Even more for me because when a project is done, I ZIP it, upload it to a cloud service and delete it from my computer(s). I find it faster to save all clips I think I might re-use in text files, store them all in the same folder with filenames that describes well the content.
