@frew, what do you think of my suggestion of using the playhead position as the focus of the zoom? If the position of the mouse is used as the focus then even if you use the mousewheel then you have to keep repositioning the mouse to exactly where you want it because the mouse position is only relative to where the zoom level is at that time which is a problem you said wanted to avoid in your original post:
However, if the playhead is used as the center point instead then there won’t ever be a reason to reposition anything regardless of the zoom level because the playhead position is fixed. That also means that the same effect can be had whether you use the mousewheel or the zoom in and out buttons on the toolbar.
@DRM Repositioning the mouse seems easy. But repositioning the view with the scrollbar is more tedious I think. With playhead position being zoom center the only drawback is that now one has to click to position the playhead then do the zoom. Pretty easy, but even easier to zoom on wherever I move the mouse it seems. If I understand correctly.
Ideally one could have a toggle in settings to have zoom center be either playhead or mouse cursor. In this way any potentially unforseen advantages of either way could be utilized as needed.
On a related workflow note, I’d love to have something like Ctrl+F show all in timeline.
Unless I am missing something, isn’t the majority of the time that you want to zoom in on something in the timeline the playhead is already positioned there? Edits are based on what you are seeing in the player and the player only shows what the playhead is positioned on.
I agree.
What a coincidence! I had a very similar thought about this except my thought was as a button next to the zoom in and out buttons.
Yes, the majority of the time I suppose, but not always. Sometimes I just like to move mouse around timeline and zoom in to check various areas in the timeline, ie just looking around at the various timeline clips, not looking at the player.
I’m not sure which zoom center is best actually. I would need to spend a little time with the way you suggest, to get a feel for it. I’m sure the playhead as zoom center would be fine.
I used to use Kdenlive a bit, so I got used to the feel of zoom center being under mouse cursor.
And yes, a nice coincidence about something like View> Fit to width, or Zoom> Show All,
(I think preferably with a hotkey combination), to see the whole project instantly.
I also agree, I tested the future final version and I think it would be a shame to lose the zoom function centered on the playhead.
Personally I think that the track height function [Shift + Wheel] is useless, so we could have 2 possibilities:
This proves that each of us has his preferences.
I must admit that I even modified the Timeline.js file so that I didn’t even have to use the keyboard. With this modification, I zoom around the playhead only with the wheel.
I will regret the current version …
For information, here is the modification that I use line 114 of the Timeline.js file
function onMouseWheel(wheel) {
adjustZoom(wheel.angleDelta.y / 720)
With the suggestions that have been made with the shortcut keys I think both can be worked in without having to make an additional option somewhere in the menu to pick one type of zoom over the other.
Perhaps something like:
Track height control [Shift + Wheel]
Zoom centered on the playhead [Ctrl + Wheel]
Zoom centered on the mouse [Alt + Wheel]
Also, since the zoom centered on the mouse function only works when the mouse is actually on the timeline, it would make sense then to configure the zoom buttons/zoom meter on the toolbar to center on the playhead.
Putting it in the View menu is too far. A button like this is used during the editing workflow thus should have quick access. It’d be much better as button next to the zoom controls in the toolbar:
Except it was not really centered on the playhead unless the Center the Playhead option is selected. I will make this new zoom behavior dependent upon that option not enabled.
I love, love, love this feature. (Shotcut 20.02.17)
Ctrl+Wheel zooms in/out centered on mouse.
Thank you so much for this.
Shotcut feels new for me now, in a good way.
This greatly helps my workflow.
I’ll bet many will love this.
All I can say is, Wow! Fantastic!
OMG I’m as excited about this as you are, @frew! And for me the track/height adjustment (Shift+Wheel) is fantastic. Great improvement, thanks @shotcut!!
(PS I thought track height changes using the wheel were very stuttery, then I realised it was due to my rubbish mouse - works great with another mouse)
Fantastic sense of humor in this video. Made me laugh deeply.
Thanks for posting it.
I must say I did feel a little giddy when I first did Ctrl+Wheel
in Shotcut Timeline today. A kind of joy of a wish come true.
A glee of a software responding so intuitively.
The elegance of these new features is a delight.
Question:
Is the operation on Mac the same?
ctrl + wheel (cmd + wheel on Mac) zoom around the playhead
shift + wheel moves the playhead to the mouse position.
(version 20-02-17)
My pesky (wireless) mouse with its terrible mouse wheel is still making the track heights change quite stuttery. (Not Shotcut’s fault - works fine with my old wired mouse). I’d like to give the track height change feature keyboard shortcuts of SHIFT+DOWN and SHIFT+UP. Anyone know how I can do this by tweaking the timeline.qml file (or similar)?
Actually could I request this as a suggestion to @shotcut?
Thanks!
No problem! Glad you liked my little bit of silliness!
And for me the track/height adjustment (Shift+Wheel) is fantastic. Great improvement, thanks 
