The way you have done it (transparent clips on a visible track) definitely will. Making it non-visible addresses the performance. Making the clips have a color makes them easier to visually identify on the timeline.
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Yes. That is what I currently have in mind.
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I’m probably out in left field here–I would use them when editing, but then remove them once done—UNLESS I wanted CHAPTER MARKERS. Movie Studio has used a “Marker” (with a name attached if wanted) to allow a viewer to skip to the next “chapter”. Handbrake calls them Chapters. Like advancing to the next scene on a DVD.
I would use them as a Skip to next chapter, so I would use the begin only, or click “start”, then click “end” without moving down the timeline. Hope it will work this way. And thanks for adding this 
Ron
This looks great Brian.
As you suggest, there are many different usage cases for markers.
My primary one is to mark edit points to synchronise video edits with a music soundtrack.
Bearing this in mind, the possibility of adding in markers manually during playback of the project would be invaluable- that is a “capture marker” command that you hit whilst realtime playback is running. For your range type markers, the command would instigate the start of a marker range and close any existing marker range which was currently being captured.
Do you think this might be possible?
With the possible use of the marker track to mark ranges for export, would it be possible to have more than one marker track so that edits to the “export” marker track did not affect the “cues” marker track?
Kudos to all the Shotcut developers- your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Ed
I hadn’t thought about markers having tracks. In my current concept, markers can overlap and they could be categorized by text or color. For the export feature, I was thinking that you could just select a marker and then export the range covered by that marker. I suppose if you want to have multiple export ranges, you could pick a color to represent export ranges and then make them all the same color.
In the current concept, a marker has 4 properties:
- Text
- Color
- Start
- End
If start and end are the same, then the marker is only marking a single frame.
Maybe there should also be a “type” property. But do types have special behaviors assigned to them, or are they really just a second text property that the user can set to whatever they want? I prefer to start with a simple implementation and then add feature as the use cases reveal themselves. So I am not sure if it is necessary to start with.
My own vote, FWIW: the 4 properties you list are more than enough to start with. I’d rather this feature be simpler and sooner rather than more complex and have it take longer …
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Exactly. Complexity in the instance of markers isn’t a good thing. They need to be able to be placed wherever they’re needed. There shouldn’t be a lot of prerequisites – in terms of using or learning – to work with them.
Hello, I would like to make a suggestion about the markers. It would be important to me that the markers can also be tied to the clips. When a clip moves in the timeline, the markers should be able to move with it. VG Robert
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This should go without saying. If the marker doesn’t move with the clip – while it isn’t useless, especially prior to a cut elsewhere in the timeline – it certainly is afterward because you’ll have to re-mark.
@LordBastet and @Philez, unless I am missing something, I believe both of you are talking about something separate than markers. In some other video editors they are called flags. Flags are put on the clips themselves as opposed to markers that are placed away from clips and on the timeline. Flags move with the clips since they are placed on the clips whereas markers are meant to mark the exact moment on the timeline regardless of what clip is there.
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Since it can mark a range of frames, there was a good suggestion made by @rondi7 that I would like to echo. And that’s about adding the function of being able to create chapters and being able to export that information. The matroska container can hold chapter info which is also used on DVDs and Blurays. Even if people are not going to use them for DVDs and Blurays, chapter information would be very useful and handy for people. It’d be nice to somehow be able to set the ranges on the timeline to create chapter stops then exporting that along with the matroska file. Can that be added?
There is also a small suggestion I wanted to bring up. In some other video editors, when you manually place the playhead on a marker or seek to a marker or even just go frame by frame to a marker, on the upper left hand corner a small transparent box will appear on the player screen with info on that marker. Like this. As soon as you move at least one frame away from the marker then that box goes away from the player. Can something like that be added?
No, I can’t speak for @LordBastet but I’m talking about markers. A marker is exactly what the name implies, namely something that indicates or marks something.
Now, my workflow tends to put markers pretty high, which I typically use to determine where to cut. And once placed (sometimes on multiple timelines, which have to be aligned) then I make the cut.
So I don’t tend to encounter an issue with the timeline shifting and knocking off the positioning of the marker, though would it be nice if if didn’t move?
Sure, it would.
Sounds like the more general question is… If somebody does a Ripple All deletion of a clip, should the markers slide down the timeline as part of the ripple?
Eek, markers that move with clips? My first thought is that they should mark places on the timeline to mark sections and not move when clips are moved…
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Which is used on the timeline, not on the clips. Markers are not for the clips. Like I said, if it’s meant to be specifically tied to a clip then it would be something like a clip marker or as is known in some other editors a flag.
In any case, @Austin brought up a good question. I would suggest in the menu/options list that is specifically for the Markers feature in Shotcut, there could be an option there for Ripple Markers. When turned on, and you move clips in the timeline with the other ripple options on, then there the markers would move according to that ripple. I think that would make sense. 
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Imagine a marker near the end of the timeline. Then ripple delete a clip. You could end up with a marker that is beyond the end of the timeline, which is probably not what you intended.
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In my current concept, markers would conform to the current “ripple” buttons in the timeline. Do you think there should be separate “ripple” buttons for markers? I’m afraid that would be confusing.
I am designing the marker system so that in the future markers could be added to individual clips. but that will not be included in the first release.
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I suggest that because there could be scenarios where someone would like to ripple the clips around but not move the markers that have been set.
That’s good to hear.
Also, just to add to the suggestion about chapter stops, there is another use case I forgot to add: Youtube. There is that feature on youtube that if you list the timestamps along with a title for each section in the description box then the youtube player will list them as chapter stops for navigation. Seeing as how producing content for youtube is a very common purpose for so many using Shotcut, a feature like that would come very much in handy. After a user finishes their edit, then can set chapter stops with the markers and there could be perhaps an export option to produce a txt file with the chapter stops and the names written in the format that is ready for youtube.
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@brian , your work on this is amazing. Thank you! Without wishing to inundate you further, I just had one more thought - it would be nice to be able not only to export between markers, but also to save a region as an MLT (use case - to mixdown a multi-tracked section into a single track). Just a thought.
Sounds good to me. I would agree, no need then for “ripple” buttons for markers I think…