The timeline holds the channels and clips; this page covers the working habits built on top of it — moving a selection, copying a look from one clip to another, hiding rows you are not cutting, and retiming a clip on a graph.
Move a whole selection
Select several layers and drag one: the grabbed layer stays under the cursor while every other selected layer previews the same snapped time offset live in its own channel — effect lane and layer markers included. The group no longer appears to move one clip at a time and then jump into place on release. Dropping commits the move as one undo step.
Cross transitions inside the selection stay connected through the move, Previous over next chains included. A transition crossing the selection’s boundary still breaks as expected when only one side moves.
A clip that carries a cross transition can be dragged freely on a free-positioned track. Choosing a transition still snaps the clip against its neighbour — which is where a cross has something to cross — but after that the drag wins.
Copy and paste settings
Right-click a clip and choose Copy settings, then Paste settings on another clip. Paste opens a checklist beside the menu rather than applying everything at once:
Time Curve · Transform · Effects · Keyframes · Transitions · Text Style · Text Animation · Shape Style · Audio · Layer Style, plus Select all.
- The header names the layer the copy came from, which matters because the clipboard survives closing the project.
- Every count is the number of settings the copy actually changes from the defaults, so a restyled caption reads Text Style 6 rather than a catch-all Others 137.
- Rows that could do nothing are dropped rather than greyed out — a caption is never offered Shape Style — and copying between two untouched layers says so in a line instead of showing ten dead rows.
- A group you leave unticked is not touched on the target, so pasting only Transform keeps the layer’s own effects, transitions and animation exactly as they were.
- A ticked group is pasted whole, so it can still reset a value the target had changed. The filtering is on which rows appear and what they count, not on what a ticked group does.
- Your choice of groups is remembered for the next paste.
Layer Style covers border, corner radius, drop shadow and blend mode. A camera clip’s rig pose travels under Transform, where it belongs.
Hide channels by what they hold
Manage ▸ Filter by Type offers Hide Video, Voice, Audio, Adjustment, Camera and Rig, each showing how many channels it covers — so a project carrying a voiceover, a music bed, a camera and a rig can be cut down to the picture rows you are actually cutting.
It is a view filter and nothing more: a hidden channel is still in the project, still plays in the preview and still exports, and its row comes straight back when the switch goes off. Reordering channels while rows are hidden leaves the hidden ones where they were. The Manage button carries a green dot for exactly as long as something is hidden, with the count in its tooltip, and Show all channels clears the lot. The choice is remembered between sessions.
Stitch
Manage ▸ Stitch closes the gaps between layers you placed by hand. It asks first, naming the scope (the selected layers, a named channel, or every free-positioned channel), how many layers will move, and what the move actually is: the layers keep the order they already play in, the first one stays exactly where it is, and every layer behind it is pulled up to start the moment the one before it ends — so neighbours carrying a cross transition end up touching and the transition engages.
Snapped channels are left alone, nothing is trimmed or deleted, and one undo puts everything back.
The speed curve
SPEED CURVE retimes a clip on a graph rather than with a single rate box. Drag points to build a ramp — slow into a beat, whip out of it — and the clip’s length on the timeline follows.
The plot’s vertical scale is built around how people think about rates rather than around the numbers:
- The 1× line is pinned a quarter of the way up. Slow motion owns the bottom 25%, speed-ups the top 75%.
- Inside each half the spacing is logarithmic, because speed is a ratio: 1× to 2× takes exactly as much height as 2× to 4×, so the rates you actually reach for keep their room.
- The range runs 0.1× to 20×, ruled at 0.25×, 0.5×, 1×, 2×, 4×, 8× and 16×, with the ends of the axis labelled.
Points have tangent handles, so a ramp is a curve rather than a corner. A toggle in the SPEED CURVE header draws the playhead’s position on the curve — the line tracks playback live, and you can click or drag the curve’s background to scrub the timeline, exactly like the keyframe graph. The toggle is remembered between sessions.
Curves made before the scale changed play exactly as they always did; they are simply drawn on the new ruler, where a rate ramp reads as a curve instead of a straight line.
The speed curve travels with Copy settings as its own Time Curve group — ticked, it retimes the target the same way the source was retimed, which does change that clip’s length; unticked, the target’s own timing is untouched.
Trims, audio and small things
- Clips trim down to 0.1s on both handles, matching what Split has always allowed — so a single-frame cut-in can be built by hand on the timeline.
- Audio channels do not offer cross transitions. A cross blends two clips’ pixels, so on sound it only pulled the second clip backwards and silently shifted the rest of the channel. Both the seam button and the right-click entry are hidden on audio and voice channels, and on any audio layer sitting on a mixed channel. Use the clip’s own fade grips instead — a compact dot on the clip’s top edge, with the same grab area they always had.
- In compact channels the track-matte and effects chips stop short of the right edge, leaving the trim handle free to drag.
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