FCP TIP - VERTICAL SCROLL LOCK
OK smart asses, let's see if you knew about THIS tool. Now, I know this one has been around for a while but I for one never touched it. I actually just thought it was something cosmetic. Just the way the timeline looked. But then my buddy Paul, who I share a bay with, fiddled with it (he was bored). And he figured out what it did.
What is it? Well, I have no clue what it is called, but here is a picture:
The part of the timeline that straddles V1 and A1...to the left of the tool pallet. Next to the pen tool. ON the timeline. Here, lemme zoom in:
THAT thing. I bet most of you didn't know this did anything did you? I didn't, as I said, I thought this was cosmetic. IT ISN'T! It has a function, and Paul figured it out.
I is a scroll lock...a VERTICAL scroll lock. Lemme try to explain this. If you have 12 layers of video, and 18 layers of audio, and your timeline doesn't fill the screen, you always need to scroll up and down to see things. But what if you always want to see V1, or V1 and V2? Well, drag this up and it will lock the track so they never scroll out of site. V2 on up will move, but not V1. Look:
See, it draws a little BOX around the track. All you need to do is grab the top tab and pull it up one notch. Want to cover two tracks? You can do that too:
And you can do the same with audio.
HOW COOL IS THAT? And don't you tell me "oh, I have been doing this for years...where have you BEEN Shane?" I don't want to hear it! Well, OK, maybe I do. I would like to know if people knew about this...but more from people who will tell me "GREAT find Shane! Thanks!"
Don't thank me...Thank Paul.
14 comments:
Way cool! I had no idea. I'm not sure I even really noticed the thing before [smile].
Thanks for enlightening me, Shane! ...I mean, Paul. [smile]
~Luke
yup, thats new to me man, pretty cool too.
Thing is, even when you have known something, doesn't mean you think to use it now. I think I've known - and forgotten - this technique about three times in the 10 years of FCP. Thanks for a reminder, I'd forgotten again.
Philip
Wow, you really don't explore the app much do you? ;-)
hell I probably used it on a show we both worked on...
I have found it by accident. How do you undo it??
I have KNOWN about it for a long time but truth told I always forget about it. Every now and then I'm like "oh, the timeline scroll lock thing!"
While I have know about it for a while, I haven't used it. I discovered it by accident as well (I think everyone does), but since I haven't worked with a timeline that had so many tracks that I needed this kind of function, it is one of those features I never think about. That said, it is a great find and kudos for it. It is indeed a very obscure feature which I have to say have never seen written about anywhere in any blogs or forums.
And for Peter, you can undo it by reversing your action. Grab and drag it down.
Also, what's even cooler (and much more useful to me) is the ability to change the height of individual tracks in the timeline, not just all tracks.
*sigh* if only I could selectively enable waveform view on selected audio clips in the timeline...
OK, that was too easy. I like the technique though now that I know what it does.
Is there any way to restore re-sized tracks back to their orginal size besides just dragging it..which can also make it smaller...?
To resize tracks back to a default state click the track resize button at the bottom of the timeline for the height you want. It looks like a bar graph and each bar corresponds to a preset height for all tracks: reduced, small medium, and large.
Didn't now that. Thanks
I never even noticed that
thanks for the tip
Yep - that's pretty cool. Will be helpful in many ways working on multitrack projects. Thanks Shane!
I am an audio track freak and always end up with 12 so I use this tool quite a lot as a matter of fact.
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