Timeline editor

The Timeline Editor is where you build a Timeline input: a short programme of clips on tracks that plays back in step with Program. You drop inputs onto tracks, move and trim them, fade them in and out, mark cues, and watch the result in a picture that is the timeline's own input.

Open the editor

Double-click a Timeline tile in the Studio window. A timeline tile opens its editor instead of putting itself on air, so a stray double-click cannot cut a half-built timeline live. A single click still puts it on Preview.

You can also use the Timeline menu in the menu bar. It shows only on a plan that has Timeline. Open Timeline Editor opens the selected timeline (or the first one). The rest of the menu is every editor command, each with the key it uses shown beside it, so you can find a key by reading the menu. The commands act on the editor that is in front and are grayed out when there is nothing for them to act on, for example Delete with no clip selected.

On Windows the Timeline menu in the menu bar holds only Open Timeline Editor (selected timeline, else the first). The editor's other commands are on its keys, its edit bar and its right-click menu.

Each timeline has its own window, titled Timeline Editor, with the timeline's name under the title. The button at the left of the toolbar lists every timeline in the show (tooltip Open another timeline). If the timeline is removed from the show while its editor is open, the window says Timeline removed.

The window

From top to bottom and left to right:

The first time a timeline opens it is empty, and the tracks area says An empty timeline and "Clips you add appear on tracks, in time."

Each track has a header with three keys: an eye (the track's picture shows or is hidden), a speaker (its sound is on or off) and a lock. A locked track cannot be edited: its clips do not move, trim, split or delete, and no clip is dropped onto it.

Add clips

Drag an input tile from the Studio window onto a track. A ghost clip follows the pointer and shows where the clip will land, and a drop only works where the ghost shows. Studio decides the length: a media file gets its own length and any other input gets 5 seconds.

• When the spot is busy, the ghost glides up to the first track above that has room. If no track has room, an empty New Track row opens at the top and the clip goes there.
• What can be a clip. Any input except an audio input and another timeline. A List goes on as its files, see Lists as clips.
• Without dragging. Select an input in the Studio window, put the playhead where it should start, and press Shift+Command+Return. The clip goes on the first track with room at the playhead.

Add Track in the toolbar puts a new empty track on top.

Add Media

Add Media… puts movie, audio and image files on the timeline without adding them to the show first. Studio adds each file as a media input and lays the clips on the timeline in one go. Three ways to start it:

• The button. Add Media… in the toolbar opens the system file picker, and you can pick several files.
• The menus. Add Media… in the right-click menu of a clip or of empty space on a track, and on the Mac also in the Timeline menu. It has no key of its own.
• A drop. Drag files from the Finder onto a track (Explorer on Windows).

Where the clips land:

• From the button or a menu. The clips start at the playhead, one after another in the order you picked, on the track of the first selected clip, else on the bottom track. When the spot is busy a clip goes up to the first track above that has room, as for any clip.
• From a drop on the Mac. At the spot the ghost shows. The ghost glides to a track with room, and a locked track takes no drop.
• From a drop on Windows. On the track under the pointer, at the time under the pointer. Below the last track, the bottom track.

Each clip gets its file's own length (a still image gets 5 seconds). A file the show already plays keeps its input, so it is not added twice. The whole thing is one undo step: Edit, Undo takes back the new inputs and the clips together, and Redo brings both back. If any file is not a movie, audio or an image, the whole add is refused.

Lists as clips

A List input goes on a track as its files, laid end to end at their own lengths, in the order of the list. Three ways to put one on:

• Drag it from the Studio window onto a track. The ghost shows one clip per file and appears once every file's length is known.
• Right-click empty space on a track and choose Add List Items, then the List. It lands where you clicked. Only Lists that have files are listed.
• Select the List in the Studio window, put the playhead where it should start and press Shift+Command+Return.

A file that is not yet a media input is added as one. The whole List is one step in Studio's undo history. On an on-air timeline it needs Edit Live.

Titles

Add Title puts a new title and its clip on the timeline at the playhead, 5 seconds long. Press Option+T, choose Add Title in the Timeline menu, or right-click a clip or empty space on a track and choose it there. The clip goes on the track you right-clicked, else on the track of the selected clip, else on the bottom track, and moves up to a track with room when the spot is busy. Adding the title and its input is one undo step.

Select the clip and edit the words in the Text section of the inspector. On an on-air timeline, Add Title is refused until Edit Live is on.

Move, trim and fade

The default fade is 0.5 seconds. Command+D adds the default fades to the selected clips and Shift+Command+D removes them. A clip with fades shows the ramp drawn over it.

Every gesture is one step in the Studio's undo history, so Edit, Undo takes back a whole drag, trim or fade in one go.

Snapping

Snapping is on by default. While you move a clip, trim an edge or drag a cue, it snaps to the playhead, to the edges of other clips, to cues, and to the very start and end of the timeline. A line shows what it snapped to and, on a trackpad, you feel a small tap. Turn it off with the Snapping toggle in the toolbar or the S key.

Ripple

Ripple changes what delete does. With it on, deleting a clip also closes the gap it leaves on its track, by moving the later clips on that track back. With it off, the gap stays. Shift+Delete is always a ripple delete, whatever the toggle says.

Zoom

The Zoom slider, the magnifier keys, Command+Plus and Command+Minus zoom the time scale. Backslash (\) fits the whole timeline in the window. On a trackpad, pinch to zoom, or hold Option and scroll. Scroll sideways to move along the timeline. A track height of Small, Medium or Large changes how tall the rows are.

Right-click a clip

Cross dissolve

A cross dissolve blends one clip into the next at a cut, where a clip ends exactly where the next one starts on the same track. Select the later clip (or, when it is the only clip selected, the earlier one) and choose Add Cross Dissolve or press Command+T. Remove Cross Dissolve or Shift+Command+T takes it off. A dissolve is 1 second long. Locked tracks are left alone.

The dissolve is centred on the cut, so it needs picture on both sides: a media clip must have file left past its end point and before its start point. Studio shortens the dissolve to what both clips can give, and to no more than half of either clip. A still or a live input has no limit of its own. A dissolve replaces the fades of both clips at that cut and ramps on the fade Curve. It shows as a mark over the overlap.

Clip speed

Media clips can play faster or slower. Select them and press Command+R for Normal Speed, Shift+Command+R for Fast 200% or Option+Command+R for Slow 50%. Or set Speed in the inspector, from 10% to 1000%. Only media clips have a speed, and the commands are grayed out unless one is selected.

The clip plays the same part of its file, so its length follows the speed: at 200% it is half as long, at 50% twice as long. Speed is forward only, and a clip plays its sound only at 100%.

At End

A media clip normally ends where its file does. At End in the inspector says what the clip does when you stretch it past the end of its file:

Any choice other than Stop lifts the trim limit, so you can drag the right edge, or type a longer Length, as far as you like. The clip's length stays the length you set. Only a media clip with a known file length has the row. A live input, a still, a title or a scene always acts as Stop, and a show saved before At End opens with every clip on Stop. Select several clips and a different choice reads Mixed. Changing it is one undo step.

Keyframes

A clip can change its picture over time. Open the Layer page of the inspector, set the box, rotation, crop and opacity as you want them at one moment, put the playhead there inside the clip and press Option+K (Add Keyframe at Playhead, also a button on the page). That is a keyframe, drawn as a diamond on the selected clip. Between two keyframes the layer eases from one to the next, and before the first and after the last it holds.

• One clip. Keyframes work on a single selected clip, not on a locked track, with the playhead inside it. Adding a key where one already is replaces it.
• Previous and next. Option+; and Option+' move the playhead to the previous or next keyframe of the selected clip.
• Remove. Remove Keyframe on the Layer page drops the key at the playhead.
• Easing. The Layer page lists every keyframe by its time, each with an Easing menu (Linear, Ease In, Ease Out, Ease In Out, Smooth) for how the layer eases to the next key. A new key eases like the one before it, and the first one eases in and out.

Only the box, rotation, crop and opacity are keyed. While a clip has keys, the picture follows them for those four, and the Layer page edits the clip's base layer, not a key. Press Option+K to put a change into a key. The rest of the layer, such as the look, stays as the Layer page sets it. Splitting a clip gives each half the keys it needs to look the same.

Split at Playhead and the playhead keys below act on the selected clips under the playhead, or, with nothing selected, on every unlocked clip under it.

Clip effects

With one clip selected, the Effects row in the inspector opens a page with the same controls as an input's effects in Studio: Colour correction, LUT, Chroma key and Luma key. Back to clip returns. They are the clip's own, so the same input can look different on each clip. A clip with none turned on is plain and shows its input as it is.

On macOS that page also has the Picture controls (Mirror horizontal, Mirror vertical, Deinterlace) and Sharpen. Deinterlace is on the Studio and Enterprise plans; mirror and sharpen are free on every Studio plan.

A slider changes the picture while you drag and the release is one undo step. On an on-air timeline, effects edits need Edit Live. A LUT file that cannot be read is refused.

Cues

A cue is a named flag on the ruler. Cues are marks to jump to, and each can also act when playback reaches it: its Follow action.

• Add a cue: press M. It lands at the playhead and is named Cue 1, Cue 2 and so on.
• Go to a cue: click its flag.
• Move a cue: drag its flag. It snaps like a clip edge.
• Rename: double-click the flag and type. Return keeps the name.
• Right-click a flag: Go to Cue, Rename Cue, Follow (a submenu, the current one ticked) and Delete Cue.

Follow actions

A new cue is Continue: playback runs on past it. Change it in the Follow submenu of the flag or in the Follow menu in the cue's row of the Cues list:

A cue with an action other than Continue shows a mark on its flag: a square for Stop, a return arrow for Go to Cue, an hourglass for Wait. Follow actions fire only when playback crosses the cue going forward. Going to a cue or to a time (a click, a key or External Control) never fires one. A show saved with stop cues opens with them as Stop.

Shift+M opens the Cues list (the Cue List item in the Timeline menu). It has Previous cue and Next cue, an Add Cue key, and one row per cue with its number, name and time, its Follow menu, and two keys: Go to cue and Delete cue. With no cues it says "No cues yet. Press M to add one at playhead."

A cue also counts as an edit point for the Up and Down keys, and clips snap to it.

With VoiceOver on, every cue flag on the ruler is a button you can reach. It reads like "Cue 1, at 1.5 seconds, stops playback", or "Cue 1, at 1.5 seconds, then Wait 5 Seconds". Pressing it goes to the cue, and its actions are Move Earlier and Move Later (one second), one Follow action for each choice, and Delete Cue. Renaming is done with the double-click, not through an action.

The inspector

With clips selected, the inspector shows them. With one clip it is headed by the input's name and kind icon. With several it says how many clips are selected, and any field where they differ reads Mixed. Changing a field changes every selected clip.

On a scene clip, a scene layer you pick on its lane gets an Animation section on the layer page, with Enter and Exit (see Enter and Exit). It edits the scene's own layer as one undo step. A clip's own layer has no Enter or Exit.

With nothing selected the inspector shows the timeline:

The Loop toggle in the toolbar and the one in the inspector are the same setting.

Thumbnails, waveforms and warnings

A media clip shows a filmstrip of its pictures and, along its bottom, its waveform. They fill in as you zoom, only for the part you can see.

Hover a clip to see why it is flagged:

• Missing: this clip's input is no longer in the show. The input was removed from the show. The clip stays so you can see where it was.
• Late: this clip should be showing but has no picture yet. Too many clips play at once, or the file did not open. Studio also raises the Timeline Clip Late warning.

Keyboard shortcuts

These work while a Timeline Editor window is in front and you are not typing in a field. They do not reach the Studio keys: Space plays and pauses the timeline here, while in the Studio window it stays Quick Play. Arrow keys repeat while held. Command is the primary key on the Mac.

J, K and L work like the shuttle keys of a video editor. Pressing L or J the other way round starts again at normal speed, and K stops and sets the speed back to normal. Sound plays only at normal speed. While the timeline is on Program the keys accept only normal speed forward, so a faster or backward press changes nothing and Studio shows the notice Normal Speed On Air.

Undo and Redo are the Edit menu's, and cover the whole Studio setup. See also Keyboard Shortcuts.

VoiceOver

Each track is a group and each clip is an element. A clip reads like "Blue, starts 1 second, 4 seconds long, fade in half a second". Clips carry actions for the same edits as the keys: move earlier or later, move to the track above or below, split, trim the start or end to the playhead, add or remove fades and delete.

Run it from outside

The transport of a timeline is under External Control: Timeline play, Timeline pause, Timeline stop and Timeline seek. Over OSC, go to a time with /cliqer/studio/timeline_seek <input> <ms>, for example /cliqer/studio/timeline_seek 2 90000 (the input as a number or an id, the time in milliseconds).

Windows

The Timeline editor is on Windows, with the same window, tracks, clips, cues and inspector. Windows keys use Ctrl where the Mac uses Command and Alt where it uses Option. What differs:

• Open it. Double-click a Timeline tile, pick one from the list at the left of the edit bar (tooltip Open another timeline), or use Open Timeline Editor in the Timeline menu. Timeline is in Add Input as on the Mac.
• Edit bar. One slim bar between the picture and the ruler holds the timeline list, Snapping, the tool keys, the loop keys, the transport, the zoom keys, Track Height, Add Media…, Add Track and the inspector key.
• Right-click menu. Right-click on the tracks gives Cut Clips, Copy Clips, Paste Clips and Add Media…. The other clip commands are on keys.
• Add Media and drops. Add Media… opens the Windows file picker, and you can drop files from Explorer onto the tracks, see Add Media. There is no ghost clip: a drop lands under the pointer.
• Keys. The same commands as the Mac table below, with Ctrl and Alt. Four keys move because Windows keeps Alt and Ctrl+Alt letters for menus and AltGr: Slow 50% is Ctrl+Shift+5, Add Title is Shift+T, Add Keyframe at Playhead is Ctrl+[, and clearing the loop range is Ctrl+Shift+X. Zoom with Ctrl and the mouse wheel.
• At End. The same four choices in the Timing section of the inspector, and a media clip set to Stop cannot be trimmed or lengthened past its file.

Plan

Timeline is a Studio feature of the Ultra plan and up. The free trial and the Event Pass keep it. On any other plan the Timeline entry in Add Input shows a padlock. See Plans and limits.

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