Moving tracks is more tricky than you think

[ken-wawa]

Hi,
Many of us are dreaming about moving tracks functionality. There is even at first glance quite good tutorial thread here Rearrage tracks / move tracks up/down - #24 by Praveen_Kumar_Nandag Unfortunately it’s closed so I can’t write there.
However I would like to warn all doing tracks rearranging according to this old thread. It doesn’t cover one thing. In xml project file there is the following section:

 <tractor id="tractor0" title="Shotcut version 20.10.31" global_feed="1" in="00:00:00.000" out="00:13:50.684">
    <property name="shotcut">1</property>
    <property name="shotcut:projectAudioChannels">2</property>
    <property name="shotcut:projectFolder">0</property>
    <property name="shotcut:scaleFactor">0.565481</property>
    <track producer="background"/>
    <track producer="playlist1"/>
    <track producer="playlist2" hide="audio"/>
    <track producer="playlist3" hide="both"/>
    <track producer="playlist0" hide="audio"/>

    <transition id="transition2">
      <property name="a_track">0</property>
      <property name="b_track">1</property>
      <property name="mlt_service">mix</property>
      <property name="always_active">1</property>
      <property name="sum">1</property>
    </transition>
    <transition id="transition3">
      <property name="a_track">1</property>
      <property name="b_track">1</property>
      <property name="version">0.9</property>
      <property name="mlt_service">frei0r.cairoblend</property>
      <property name="disable">1</property>
    </transition>

The way given in the mentioned thread at this forum doesn’t touch modifying this tractor section. Without this you will not set the correct blending mode for re-arranged tracks. In result quite quickly you will have problems with transparency in your project, especially if it’s bigger. For example some tracks which had transparent things (ex. transparent background) instead of transparent color will have black color. I’ve found that there are many complaints about transparency problems at this forum ans some of them could be caused by this bad tracks re-arranging.

Concluding we still urgently need moving tracts at GUI.

[shotcut]

1. Insert track where you want
2. using Shift range select all clips on track you want to move
3. drag the selected clips to the new track
4. optionally delete empty track

[ken-wawa]

It might be some kind of solution if you have simple project. If I have 15 tracks and I want to add a new one at the bottom, it means a lot of work in the way you are proposing.

[shotcut]

It is not a lot of work. Even if Shotcut offered the ability to drag a track you are still dragging across all the tracks you want. And if it only offered the ability to move a track up or down by one with a menu item or button you would have a lot of clicking and waiting for redraw. Here is 16 tracks minimized so you hopefully do not need to deal with vertical scroll:

(370px high)

[ken-wawa]

I would discuss. Sure selecting some elements with Shift is some option. But there are two weak things in that idea for me:

1. Sometimes some elements are very narrow. Thus you can’t select them when having everything so small. It would be much more easier if it was possible to select all elements being on one track and AFAIK it’s not possible. Also copying, cutting, pasting don’t work for more than one element selected.
2. When shifting elements from one track to another it’s very easy to shift them left or right as well. In result you can get few frames shift easily. Sure you can try to do sth with that but it’s time consuming.

Concluding for me doing like you are proposing is like playing some game and it’s time consuming. Me personally I really regret that there is no track rearranging functionality.
I also wrote my post in order to warn others that modifying xml file is more tricky that most people thing. And if you destroy blending mode in xml, it’s not possible to set it from GUI (track property doesn’t have then blend mode option It’s not visible then. It’s related probably with the fact that by default audio tracks don’t have blend mode which is obvious and justified. However when rearranging in xml and not touching tractor section some tracks which had previously id of audio are becoming video tracks and vice versa and there is mess.)

[shotcut]

I am not saying reordering tracks is an unnecessary feature. It is on the roadmap that I wrote. What I suggested is currently the best option for nearly all users, not editing XML.

[ken-wawa]

Do you have any idea when this option might be added?