Is it possible to package/zip all of the media files in the playlist together, so they’re permanently associated with a specific Shotcut file?
I’m trying to create a template to give to other users - I’d like to be able to give them a Shotcut file that recognizes where its Playlist assets are, so the user doesn’t need to go through and locate them all individually when they load the Shotcut file.
Shotcut will use relative paths in the .MLT file provided the media files are in the .MLT’s folder or below it in the folder hierarchy. At that point, you can zip up the .MLT’s folder as-is and send it to someone else. This is the same procedure that’s used to work on Shotcut projects on external hard drives that are carried between multiple computers. It also works across different operating systems.
If the .MLT links to a media file outside (above) its folder, or to an entirely different drive or mount point, then all bets are off when transferred to someone else’s computer. There’s really no way to reconcile those paths without moving the media files into the .MLT’s folder, because you can’t expect to have control of any other folder on another user’s computer except the one your project is unpacked into.
You got it! If you have a lot of media files and want to organize things a little, you can create subfolders underneath your .MLT root and they will link fine as well.
If you use the New Project view in the startup screen state, then the first 2 steps are taken care of for you plus things like Stabilize and Overlay HTML will automatically place the extra files they create in your project folder. In the future, there will be options to copy or move media to your project folder but not yet, and you have to do that manually now.