Timeline

The Timeline panel (bottom) is where you arrange, trim, and edit clips into your final sequence.

Layout

• Ruler — shows time positions with adaptive tick marks; click to seek the playhead. Improved responsiveness for frame-accurate scrubbing.
• Track rows — each track (Video or Audio) shows clips as coloured rectangles.
• Playhead — the red vertical line indicates the current playback position.
• Track header — shows the track name; click the mute button to silence an audio track.

Navigation

Action	How
Seek	Click on the ruler or left-drag in the ruler
Zoom in/out	Scroll the mouse wheel vertically
Pan left/right	Scroll the mouse wheel horizontally
Pan ruler view	Middle/right-drag in the ruler

Tools

Select Tool (Escape)

The default tool. Use it to:

• Select a clip by clicking on it (highlighted yellow border).
• Move a clip by dragging its body (horizontally within a track, or vertically to another track of the same kind).
• Trim the In-point by dragging the left edge of a selected clip.
• Trim the Out-point by dragging the right edge of a selected clip.

Snapping: clip edges snap to nearby clip boundaries (±10 px threshold) while moving or trimming.

Razor / Blade Tool (B)

• Click on a clip body to split it at the playhead position.
• Press B or Escape to toggle back to Select tool.

Magnetic Mode (Toolbar Toggle)

• Use the Magnetic toggle in the main toolbar to enable/disable gap-free editing.
• When enabled, the edited track is compacted after clip edits so gaps are removed.
• In v1, magnetic behavior is track-local (it does not ripple other tracks).
• Magnetic mode affects timeline edits from UI and MCP clip-edit tools.

Ripple Edit Tool (R)

• Activates ripple trimming: trim a clip’s in-point or out-point and all subsequent clips on the same track shift to fill or accommodate the change.
• Press R to toggle Ripple mode on/off.

Roll Edit Tool (E)

• Click near an edit point (boundary between two adjacent clips) to adjust the cut point.
• The left clip’s out-point and the right clip’s in-point move together — the overall timeline duration stays the same.
• Press E to toggle Roll mode on/off.

Slip Edit Tool (Y)

• Drag a clip body to shift its source window (source in/out) without moving the clip on the timeline or changing its duration.
• Useful for adjusting which portion of the source footage appears in a fixed-length clip.
• Press Y to toggle Slip mode on/off.

Slide Edit Tool (U)

• Drag a clip body to move it on the timeline while the neighboring clips adjust their edit points to compensate.
• The left neighbor’s out-point extends/shrinks and the right neighbor’s in-point shrinks/extends — overall timeline duration stays the same.
• Press U to toggle Slide mode on/off.

Insert at Playhead (,)

• Places the current source selection (In → Out from the source monitor) at the playhead position on the active track.
• All clips at or after the playhead are shifted right to make room — a ripple insert.
• Also available via the ⤵ Insert button in the source monitor transport bar.
• Requires a source to be loaded with valid in/out marks.

Overwrite at Playhead (.)

• Places the current source selection at the playhead position, replacing any existing material in the time range.
• Clips that fall within the overwrite range are trimmed, split, or removed as needed.
• No subsequent clips are shifted — the timeline duration only changes if you overwrite past the end.
• Also available via the ⏺ Overwrite button in the source monitor transport bar.
• Requires a source to be loaded with valid in/out marks.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Space	Play / Pause program monitor
B	Toggle Razor (Blade) tool
R	Toggle Ripple edit tool
E	Toggle Roll edit tool
Y	Toggle Slip edit tool
U	Toggle Slide edit tool
,	Insert at playhead (from source monitor)
.	Overwrite at playhead (from source monitor)
Escape	Switch to Select tool
Delete / Backspace	Delete selected clip
M	Add chapter marker at current playhead position
Right-click ruler	Remove the nearest marker
Right-click transition marker	Remove transition at clip boundary
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Y / Ctrl+Shift+Z	Redo
Scroll (vertical)	Zoom timeline
Scroll (horizontal)	Pan timeline
? / /	Show in-app keyboard shortcut reference

Chapter Markers

• Press M to drop a marker at the playhead — a label dialog allows you to name it.
• Markers appear as coloured flags on the ruler with their label.
• Right-click on the ruler to remove the nearest marker.
• Markers are exported in the FCPXML file.

Tracks

• Add Track buttons below the timeline add a new Video or Audio track.
• Remove Track removes the currently active (highlighted) track, or the last track if none is selected. At least one track is always kept.
• Reorder tracks by dragging a track’s label vertically; a blue indicator line shows the drop target. Release to confirm.
• Active track — click anywhere in a track row (including empty space) to highlight it. The active track shows a blue accent bar on its label. The active track is used as the target for the Append button and the Remove Track button.
• Audio tracks show a waveform visualisation (decoded in the background after import).
• Muting an audio track excludes it from both preview and export.

Transitions

• Use the Transitions pane on the right (below Inspector) to browse available transitions: Cross-dissolve, Fade to black, Wipe right, and Wipe left.
• Use the pane’s button to hide/show the transition list.
• Drag any transition from the pane and drop it near a clip boundary in the timeline to apply a transition marker.
• While dragging, the two clips that will receive the transition are highlighted as a live preview.
• Remove a transition by right-clicking its boundary marker in the timeline.
• Exports apply transitions on the primary video track via ffmpeg xfade.
• Transitions are designed to be extensible: future transition types will appear in the same pane.

Undo / Redo

All clip moves, trims, splits, deletions, track add/remove operations, and transition application are undoable.

• Ctrl+Z — Undo
• Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z — Redo

The undo history is per-session (not persisted in the FCPXML).

Clip Appearance

• Video clips show a time-mapped thumbnail strip (extracted in the background): tiles progress across the clip’s source range instead of repeating one frame.
• Thumbnail strips now load progressively with adaptive tile density to keep timeline warm-up responsive on heavy media.
• Preferences → Timeline → Show timeline preview lets you switch to start/end-only thumbnails per video clip.
• Audio clips show a color-coded normalized waveform:
  • Green: Quiet (< −18 dBFS)
  • Yellow: Moderate (−18 to −6 dBFS)
  • Red: Loud (≥ −6 dBFS)
• Waveform overlay on video: When enabled in Preferences, a semi-transparent color-coded waveform is drawn on the lower portion of video clips.
• A yellow speed badge (e.g. 2×) appears on clips with a speed multiplier ≠ 1.0.
• A cyan LUT badge appears on clips with an assigned Color LUT.
• A reverse badge (◀) appears on clips with reverse playback enabled.
• Selected clips have a yellow highlight border.