Moving around the timeline

Activating the timeline toolbar

The timeline toolbar contains many tools, which become active once a clip is selected in the timeline. To select a clip, simply click on the desired clip in the timeline. When selected, the clip will become darker and the timeline toolbar items will now be clickable.

Scrolling

You can scroll by:

  • Using the mouse wheel anywhere over the timeline to scroll horizontally, or hold down the Shift key while using the mouse wheel to scroll the timeline layers vertically

  • Clicking anywhere over the timeline with the middle button and dragging the timeline

  • Using the scrollbars located on the right and bottom of the timeline

Zooming

Zooming directly affects your editing accuracy and your ability to move quickly along the timeline:

  • When zooming in, video clips display more thumbnails and audio clips display increasingly detailed waveforms, allowing you to do precise edits.

  • Zooming out allows you to scroll faster along the timeline. Zoom can thus be used in conjunction with scrolling to move quickly between distant points of your project's chronology.

You can zoom in and out by:

  • Holding the Ctrl key while using the mousewheel over the timeline, to keep the timeline point where the mouse cursor is in place if possible

  • Holding the Alt key while using the mousewheel over the timeline, to keep the playhead in view

  • Dragging the zoom slider on the left of the ruler

  • Using keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl+- to zoom out or Ctrl+= (Ctrl++ on the numeric keypad) to zoom in

To get a global overview of your timeline, you may click the Zoom button on the left of the zoom slider. Another way to do this is by pressing Ctrl+0.

Warping between zoom levels

Using your mouse, you can also warp instantly from any zoom level to another in a single click. To do that, click anywhere on the zoom slider.

Moving the playhead

You can change the position of the playhead by clicking with the right mouse button anywhere on the ruler or on the timeline.

Jumping to an exact position

You can jump to an exact position in the timeline by editing the time value shown in the playback toolbar (see description of The main window). To edit it, simply click on the widget, overwrite the value and hit enter. The value can represent either timecode or a frame number. Timecode has the following form: hh:mm:ss.milisec where hours are optional. To insert a frame number, overwrite the timecode with a plain number of the desired frame.

Scrubbing

Scrubbing is a way of moving the playhead that allows you to:

  • Search for a specific position in time by approximation/trial and error.

  • Review repeatedly the visual motion in a scene by moving back and forth in time.

To scrub, click on the ruler with the right mouse button and move the mouse with the button still held down.