Add clips to the timeline

Importing a file puts it in the Media tab, not on the timeline. To use it, drag its row onto a track or onto the preview canvas.

Where: Media tab ▸ drag a row onto a trackMedia tab ▸ drag a row onto the preview canvas
Agent tools: add_clipadd_track

This page covers files. Text, shapes and graphics have their own ways in.

Drag media onto a track

Drag a row from the Media tab onto a track. The whole file lands as one clip at the pointer, on the nearest frame, and nothing else moves. The drop doesn’t snap to the edges of other clips.

Hold a modifier as you let go to make room for the file or replace what’s there. See Insert and overwrite.

A drop that overlaps a neighbour a little still lands, as long as it keeps to the overlap rule, and makes a Cross Dissolve over the overlap.

Edit ▸ Undo names this step Add Clip.

Drop media on the canvas

Drop a row on the preview canvas to add the file at the playhead, on a new track at the front. Use this to lay a file over everything else without looking for a free stretch of track.

The new track and the clip are one undo step, Add Clip. Modifier keys do nothing here.

What a new clip covers

A new clip starts at the head of the file and runs its whole length, at normal speed. The length rounds down to whole frames, so the clip never runs past the end of the file. That can leave a part of a frame at the tail unused.

A picture is 5 seconds long. Trim it to any length.
A file larger than the canvas is scaled to fit, while Fit new clips to canvas is on in the Document tab. It’s on by default. A smaller file keeps its size.
A video or sound file shorter than one frame of the project can’t be placed, and Frame Job says so.

When a drop doesn’t land

What happened	What you see
The clip would break the overlap rule	Frame Job beeps, adds nothing, and gives the reason at the foot of the inspector. The drag springs back. Hold `⌥` to insert or `⇧⌥` to overwrite as you drop instead.
You let go above or below the lanes	The drag springs back. Only a clip already on the timeline makes a new track that way.
You let go in another project’s window	The drag springs back. A row can only be placed in its own project.

A .cube LUT row doesn’t drag at all. Apply it as a look instead.

Good to know

A plain drop onto a locked track still places the clip, because nothing has to move.
If the project already has 64 tracks, a drop on the canvas adds the file to the front track instead, and the overlap rule can stop it there.
Files dragged from the Finder are different. On the Media tab they import. Anywhere else in the window, each opens as a project of its own.

With an agent

add_clip places a file on a track at a time you give it, as a plain drop does, and the same rules stop it. To lay a file over everything else, as a drop on the canvas does, an agent calls add_track first. See Tools: adding clips.