@brian (and @shotcut) - I know you’re busy with the next BETA, but I have 3 suggestions to improve the markers. (Incidentally congrats for all the work you did on these. They ae SOOOO useful)…
Three things:
I’m finding that dragging out a marker using CTRL/drag quite fiddly and hit/miss. I’m presuming it’s because there’s quite a small physical area around the right-hand end of the marker that the mouse has to be positioned before it allows you to drag (rather than move the whole marker). Would it be possible to increase the “capture area” so it works more reliably? I’m thinking that you could CTRL/click 10 or 20 pixels to the left of the end marker and still have it extend?
Further to this, another suggestion would be for the mouse pointer to change to two horizontal arrows (facing left/right like this: ← → ) when hovered over the right-hand edge, and CTRL is pressed? That would be fantastic!
I’d love to be able to:
a) select a clip
b) press a key combination (say CTRL/SHIFT M) and have a marker instantly created which spans the selected clip exactly.
Cubase (music software) has this feature for audio and MIDI clips and I use it extensively.
Before I go, a note of praise - I’ve noticed that if you double-click a marker in the left-hand half of a marker, the playhead snaps left, but if you click it in the right-hand half, it snaps to the right. This is cool and I use it a lot.
@jonray a little trick is to select a marker in marker view and select the Start or End and use the mouse wheel to change the marker size in left or right direction
Nice tip, @tim - thanks! Actually I’d never used the marker view. Cool.
However I’d still like to see the suggestions as detailed in my post.
I’ve just tried dragging markers on my large-screen desktop computer monitor and admittedly it’s easier to grab and drag than on my smaller-screened laptop.
PS maybe we shouldn’t mark the second post as a solution yet? Cheers.
Just for information - here’s a quick demo of adding markers to a selected clip in Cubase. After selecting a clip, I press “P” and the marker is created automatically to span the clip.
I can appreciate this comment. But I think it necessarily needs to be a small target because there are many things going on in that small space and markers can be right next to each other. I recently purchased a small wireless mouse to use with my laptop in case I need to use Shotcut away from my desk. It has helped me tremendously for these kinds of things.
I like this idea. I changed the mouse cursor to the double arrow when the left button is clicked. I did not tie it to the Control button because the marker handle movers left/right with or without the control button.
This is implemented for the next release. But the shortcut is “Alt+M”.
CTRL+SHIFT+M deletes a marker
CTRL+M mutes the selected track
I go to point in timeline where I need a marker then create a marker either by clicking on the add marker icon or with the keyboard shortcut M - then go to the point in timeline where I want the marker to end and copy the time from the counter and paste it.
@jonray, let me elaborate on my question.
You said that in Cubase you use the feature to create markers to span the selected clips extensively. I’m just curious as to what this allows you to do afterwards? Export just that section? Replay that section? Or something else?
Also, does Cubase have markers to put on the clips themselves?
Hi @drm - so sorry - I was meaning to answer your question yesterday when something cropped up and I didn’t have the time …
Yes, in Cubase you select a clip (wither audio or midi), press P and the marker appears instantly, spanning the clip. They are called “left and right locators”, not markers. Then you can mixdown just that section, or pressing “1” sets the cursor at the left locator then “space” plays from the left locator. I use it all the time.
No, the locators only apply to the timeline, not individual clips.
Having SC to apply instant markers will be very useful to be able to export just that section very easily. I know you can do that manipulating the markers (clicking/dragging) , but it will make my workflow just that bit faster. Also having a keyboard shortcut will be great since I can then set up an auto hotkey script if I need to, maybe to automate the mixdown export and make it ever easier. Hope this helps!
I think it’d be a good idea to add this as an option in the context menu as it would let the user know that this function exists and what the shortcut key for it is.
Which context menu were you thinking about? The current marker shortcut (M) does not show up in a context menu. But it does appear when you mouse over the marker button in the timeline toolbar.
I do not think it is necessary that all keyboard shortcuts have a corresponding entry in a menu somewhere. But if there is a menu that makes sense to have this entry, then I am open to adding it.
All the other actions in the right click menu is performing action on the clip, markers around a clip is not an action on the clip. Not every shortcut need to be in a menu, this is what the help is for
It’s an action according to one specific clip. And the only way to set a Timeline Marker automatically around a clip is by first selecting that clip. That’s the same first step as everything else in that right click menu for clips.
Tell that to the people at Resolve. They have the equivalent actions listed in their menus.
Which is exactly how I found out about them in Resolve actually.
Speaking of which @brian, look at my screenshot here. Resolve’s Mark Clip is the equivalent of @jonray’s request in this thread to mark around a clip. There is that additional function under it which is Mark Selection. What that does is if you multi-select clips then perform Mark Selection it wraps the in and out points starting from the first selected clip on the left to the last selected clip on the right. That would be really useful to also add to the bag of tricks.
EDIT:
I forgot an important detail. In Resolve, one is done according to the placement of the playhead and the other is done according to which clip is selected or which clips are multi-selected. Mark Clip is done according to where the playhead is. So if the playhead is in the space of a clip then it marks that clip. If there are multiple clips in that area on multiple video or audio tracks then it marks the area based on where those clips reach furthest to the left and right. Mark Selection is specifically based on the clip or clips you select regardless of where the playhead is. Can Shotcut be like this?
I have also seen application, with giant right click context menus in many levels, it is not user friendly IMHO.
It is much better to keep it simple, with only the most important commands in the menus.
If shotcut in the future get a way to do a box/range selection it can use the same key to make markers from the selection, here will at clip context menu not make sense.
Adding this function would not result in “giant right click context menus in many levels”. It would literally be just one item just like everything else in the right click menu.
It does make sense because there is no other way a user will know that this function is available in Shotcut. The grand majority of people do not read the Keyboard Shortcut page.
It is not an excuse to clutter the interface, that people don’t read the documentation.
I could understand it, if it was a design goal to have any action in a context menu, but lot of shortcuts is not.
As i read the roadmap searchable actions will come and it help user finding actions, so if you search for marker, then you will see all actions related to marker and properly the shotcut assigned to the action, it will be much more user friendly than clicking through menus.
But different people have different preferences when it comes to UX design, so there no right or wrong way to do it.
