The editor window
The four regions, the editing shortcuts, and the behavior worth knowing before you start cutting.
The four regions#
| Region | What lives there |
|---|---|
| Production Drawer, left | Everything you can put on the sequence, in five sections: Media, Colors, Text, Effects, and Transitions. Import with Cmd + I, sort into folders, and search to filter. |
| Stage Canvas, top center | Plays the active sequence. Drag inside it to reposition a clip, corner-drag to scale, and use the crop overlay to trim the frame. |
| Context Dock, right | Whatever is selected. Its sections are Video, Color, Effects, Animate, Audio, Text, and Multicam. With nothing selected it shows project settings. |
| Sequence, bottom | Where the edit happens. Tracks are layers: index 0 renders on top. |
The View menu uses the old panel names
Production Drawer and Context Dock are the current names. The View menu and the keyboard shortcut sheet still call them Library and Inspector. They are the same two panels.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Cmd + 0 | Show or hide the Production Drawer |
| Opt + Cmd + I | Show or hide the Context Dock |
| Cmd + F | Full screen |
| Backtick | Maximize the focused panel |
| + / - (or Cmd + = / Cmd + -) | Zoom the timeline in or out |
| Shift + Z | Zoom the timeline to fit |
| Opt + scroll, or pinch | Zoom to the cursor |
| Cmd + scroll | Scroll the timeline horizontally |
Drag a number field in the Context Dock to adjust it, or type a value into it. Track Controls, in the View menu, shows the per-track header column, which is hidden by default. The full shortcut list lives in the editor under Help > Keyboard Shortcuts, or press Cmd + /.
Moving around#
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Play or pause |
| J / K / L | Shuttle back, stop, shuttle forward |
| Left / Right | Step one frame |
| Shift + Left / Right | Skip backward or forward |
| Up / Down | Previous or next edit point |
| Home / End | Go to start or end |
| I / O | Mark range start or end |
Editing#
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| V | Selection tool |
| C or B | Razor tool |
| A / Shift + A | Select forward on track, or everything ahead on all tracks |
| Cmd + B | Split at playhead |
| [ or Q | Trim start to playhead |
| ] or W | Trim end to playhead |
| Backspace | Delete and close the gap |
| Opt + Backspace | Delete and leave a gap |
| Cmd + T | Add a cross dissolve |
| N | Toggle snapping |
| Opt + Left / Right | Nudge the selection one frame |
| Esc | Deselect and reset the tool |
Trim start and trim end have no modifier key, so they sit under your left hand while you scrub. Backspace closes the gap, so every clip after it slides earlier. Use Opt + Backspace to hold the slot open for a shot that has not arrived yet.
| With the mouse | Action |
|---|---|
| Shift + drag an edge | Ripple trim: trim and slide the later clips along |
| Cmd + drag media in | Ripple insert: drop it in and push the later clips right |
| Opt + drag a clip | Duplicate it |
| Opt + click or drag | Act on a video clip without its linked audio |
| Cmd + click an audio clip | Add a volume keyframe |
Clips snap to each other and to the playhead. Trim edges drag outward as well as inward, so a clip can always go back to its full source length.
Speed and ramps#
Set a constant speed from 0.01x to 1000x, or build a ramp, meaning a speed that changes across the clip. Keyframes stretch with the ramp instead of being cut off, and the audio follows. Pitch stays the same unless you turn that off, which gives the tape-style pitch climb instead.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Cmd + Opt + 1 to 5 | Set 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x, 2x, or 4x |
| Cmd + Opt + 0 | Reset speed |
| Cmd + Opt + R | Toggle rippling later clips |
Speed is the one edit that changes length
The editor applies it in one step. If a slowed clip would run into the next one, the edit is refused rather than half applied. Move the next clip first, or set the new length yourself.
Multicam#
Multicam is one take covered by two or more cameras. Group the sources and the editor syncs them, using embedded timecode when both files carry it and audio matching otherwise. Then switch which angle shows over any range, or show several at once in a split, grid, or picture-in-picture layout.
What this build cannot do#
Stated plainly so you do not go looking for it.
- Speaker identification detects that speech is present but cannot yet name who is speaking.
- Audio analysis refuses sources longer than 30 minutes rather than decoding them whole.
- Dead air removal, which strips the quiet stretches with no speech, can misread dynamic music you have not transcribed. A quiet intro or a fade can read as dead air, so transcribe musical sources first or check the result.
- XML export flattens a speed ramp to its average rate. FCPXML carries the ramp.
- No reverse playback, frame blending, or optical-flow interpolation.
- There is no audio noise reduction. The control was removed rather than left in place to fail. Video noise reduction is a separate effect and works normally.