Provide a "seek Playhead" button in Timeline panel (it should pan the timeline view to show the stretch at playhead)

Suggestion
1

Note: I checked the past threads. Similar issues raised in 2017-2020 period, but not closed. This feature is not listed in the roadmap, either.

Currently, when we CTRL+mousewheelRoll over the timeline, the display zooms in/out. But the playhead’s position jumps around erratically in the Timeline panel. It does not stay fixed in the middle or anywhere in the Timeline panel.

This is a problem because if the Playhead jumps to the right edge of the Timeline panel, our area of interest lies outside the screen area!

At high zoom factors, it is difficult to move the playhead back to the center of the screen: Even if we move the horizontal scroll knob by a little amount, the playhead vanishes out of the screen, and finding it again is a headache.

Therefore, while we zoom in/out, the playhead must always be kept steadily in the center of the Timeline panel.

Another suggestion:
The Timeline panel should have a “Seek playhead” button. If the user clicks this button, Shotcut should pan to where the playhead is, and adjust the view so that the Playhead is in the middle of the Timeline panel.

[EDIT] I have changed the title of this thread after receiving feedback from @daniel47. He pointed out that one of the two suggested features was already present. So I have retained the other suggestion.

2

Do you have Scroll to playhead on zoom enabled? For me this keeps the playhead in view while zooming (although not every zoom step puts it in center, sometimes it is to the side).

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1 Like
3

Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, it was already enabled by default.

I also discovered the Center the playhead menu option.
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By default, this option was not activated.

I selected it, and the playhead stays in the middle at higher zooms.

It moves to one side only when the timeline is about to display the whole project (at low zoom factors), which is fine.

That said, it would be nice to have a button that seeks the playhead position by panning the project, without changing the zoom factor or moving any objects.

4

More buttons is not always helpful due to clutter and the need to scan and differentiate. All you need to do is seek a little, for example LeftRight. A light amount of usage should reveal this.

5

Oh yes!

If the Center the playhead option is active, even when the playhead is out of view in the Timeline for some reason, a small movement ( LeftRight) or a zoom change (CTRL+Mousewheel) snaps it back to the center.

So there’s no need to seek the playhead manually! :+1: