Gestures with no menu item
Much of Frame Job’s editing is direct: you drag, click and pinch rather than choose a command. This page lists those gestures by where you make them, with the modifier keys that change them.
- Where
- The timelineThe preview canvasThe Media tabClip tab ▸ Color
- Agent tools
set_selectionset_playheadmove_clipduplicateadd_tracktrim_starttrim_endrate_stretchsliprollset_audioadd_actionset_actionset_action_endset_clipset_scopeclose_gapset_markermove_trackset_trackadd_clipinsert_clipoverwrite_clipimport_mediaopen_projectset_videoset_shapeset_text
On the timeline and the canvas, every drag that changes the project is one undo step, and Edit ▸ Undo names it. A click that doesn’t move anything adds no step.
Selecting on the timeline
Section titled “Selecting on the timeline”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Click | A clip | Selects it alone. Clicking a clip that’s already in a multi-selection keeps the selection, so you can drag it. |
| ⇧-click | A clip | Adds it to the selection, or removes it. |
| Click | An empty lane, or above or below the lanes | Deselects everything. |
| Drag | An empty lane, or above or below the lanes | Draws a marquee that selects every clip it touches. |
| ⇧-drag | The same places | Draws a marquee that adds to the selection. |
| ⌥-click | A track header | Selects every clip on that track. |
A marquee skips clips on locked tracks, but a click can still select one. See Select clips.
Moving clips
Section titled “Moving clips”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Drag | A clip | Moves the selected clips, in time and to other tracks. A selection across several tracks keeps its spacing. |
| Drag | Past the top or bottom track | Puts the clips on a new track: a new front track above the top, a new back track below the bottom. Clips on more than one track can only make a new back track. |
| ⌥-drag | A clip | Duplicates the clips where you drop them. The whole selection is copied when the clip is in it. A drop with no room there makes no copy. |
The earliest clip stops at the start of the timeline, and the others keep their offsets. A clip’s linked partner, such as its detached sound, moves by the same time. Drag that sound to another track and only the sound changes track.
Dragging a clip onto its neighbour on the same track makes a Cross Dissolve across the overlap, within the overlap rule.
During a drag the clip skips positions the project won’t allow and waits at the last allowed place. Only the drop counts. If the drop can’t go where you let go, a ghost of the clip animates back to where it belongs. See Move clips.
Trim, stretch, slip and roll
Section titled “Trim, stretch, slip and roll”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Drag | A clip’s edge | Trims that edge. |
| ⌥-drag | A clip’s end edge | Rate stretch: changes the speed so the clip fills the new length. |
| ⌥⇧-drag | A clip’s body | Slip: moves the source under the clip while the clip stays. |
| ⌥⇧-drag | A clip’s edge | Roll: moves the cut between this clip and the clip touching it. |
Trim. The edge zone is 7 pt wide, and the pointer turns into the resize cursor over it. A clip 21 pt wide or less is all body, so zoom in to trim it. A trim keeps at least one frame and stays within the source file. Dragging the edge of a clip’s detached sound moves the sound alone and leaves its picture, which makes a J-cut or L-cut.
Rate stretch works only on a clip that plays a media file. On any other clip, and on a start edge, ⌥ trims as usual. Nothing happens past the speed limits of ×0.1 and ×1000, or under one frame, and Frame Job won’t stretch a linked clip.
Slip never snaps, moves a frame at a time and doesn’t change the selection. A linked partner on an unlocked track slips with the clip.
Roll does nothing where no clip touches that edge, so not over a gap or a transition. Each clip keeps at least one frame, and a roll snaps as a trim does.
Clips on a locked track can’t be dragged, trimmed, slipped or rolled.
Fades and the volume line
Section titled “Fades and the volume line”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Drag | A fade handle | Sets that clip’s audio fade in or out. |
| Drag | The volume line on a clip | Changes the level at that point, in dB, shown beside the pointer. |
| ⌥-click or ⌥-drag | The volume line | Adds a volume point there as an action, then sets its level. |
A fade handle is the small square at the top corner of a clip’s audio area. It lands on whole frames, can’t go past the clip’s length and doesn’t snap to clip edges. It doesn’t work on a locked track.
The volume line grabs within 3 pt and drags up and down only. Its scale runs from +30.1 dB at the top to −60 dB, and the very bottom is silence, shown as −∞ dB. Inside or after an action that animates volume, the drag edits that action’s end. Anywhere else it edits the clip’s volume.
Adding a point beeps inside an action that also changes something else, and less than a frame after the previous action’s end.
Pressing on the line with ⇧ held, or double-clicking it, acts on the clip instead, so selecting, slipping and renaming still work there.
Action bands
Section titled “Action bands”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Click | An action band | Selects the clip and that action, and moves the playhead to the action’s end. The Clip tab then edits the action’s end values. |
| Drag | An action band | Moves the action in time, on whole frames. It stops at the next action and at the clip’s own length. |
| Drag | The edge of a band, its outer 5 pt | Changes the action’s start or length, keeping at least one frame. |
⎋ deselects the action. A band 15 pt wide or less has no edge zones and is all body.
While you drag, a dashed ghost marks the old place and a readout shows the new times and offset, or the change in length in frames. An action with no length has no band on the timeline. On a locked track, a click on a band selects only the clip, and the band won’t drag.
The action lane in the Clip tab moves and resizes bands the same way, and its Clip chip deselects the action. There, an action with no length can be selected but not dragged. See Action bands and the action lane.
Double-clicks
Section titled “Double-clicks”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Double-click | A clip | Renames it in place. |
| Double-click | A nest clip | Goes inside the nest. To rename a nest clip, use ⇧⌘R. |
| Double-click | An empty part of a lane | Closes that gap. It beeps when there’s no gap. It doesn’t work above or below the lanes, where no track is named. |
| Click | The breadcrumb in the corner, while a nest is open | Comes back out by one level. |
The ruler and markers
Section titled “The ruler and markers”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Click or drag | The ruler | Moves the playhead and pauses, playing the sound under it in short grains. |
| Drag | A marker | Moves it. |
| Double-click | A marker | Renames it. ⎋ keeps the old name, and an empty name changes nothing. |
The ruler is the only way to hear a scrub. The transport keys move the playhead in silence.
A marker grabs within 6 pt of its line and snaps. It can’t land on another marker’s time, so a drop there leaves it at the last time it could take. See Markers.
Track headers
Section titled “Track headers”| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Drag a header | Moves the track up or down the stack. |
| Double-click a header | Renames the track. |
| ⌥-click a header | Selects every clip on the track. |
| Click the eye | Hide Video. |
| Click the speaker | Mute Audio. |
| Click the lock | Lock Track. |
| Click the headphones | Solo. |
| Click the sliders | Opens the track’s mix panel. The sliders are lit when the track’s volume or pan isn’t at its default, or the track has a compressor or limiter. |
Right-clicking a header gives you a menu. See Buttons and context menus.
Snapping
Section titled “Snapping”While snapping is on (N), moving, trimming, stretching and rolling clips, dragging a marker and scrubbing the ruler snap to clip edges, markers, the start and end of the timeline, the playhead and the in and out points. They snap within 8 points on screen at every zoom, and a guide line shows the snap, except on the ruler. A slip doesn’t snap. Every edit lands on the frame grid either way.
Hold ⌘ while you drag to turn snapping off for that drag, even if you press it partway through. View ▸ Snapping stays as it was.
Zoom and scroll
Section titled “Zoom and scroll”| Gesture | Where | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Pinch, or ⌥ or ⌘ with the scroll wheel | Anywhere on the timeline | Zooms around the pointer, keeping the time under it in place. |
| Scroll | Anywhere on the timeline | Scrolls. The track headers stay at the left and the ruler stays at the top. |
The zoom runs from 0.35 to 4,000 points per second, and the default is 42. During playback the timeline scrolls itself to keep the playhead in view.
The timeline’s zoom has no menu item or shortcut except ⇧Z, which fits the whole project. The timeline bar has its own zoom controls. See Zoom and scroll the timeline.
Dragging media in
Section titled “Dragging media in”| Drag | Drop on | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| A row from the Media tab | A track | Places the clip at the drop point. A drop that breaks the overlap rule doesn’t go in, and a smaller overlap makes a Cross Dissolve. |
| ⌥ and a Media row | A track | Insert: makes room by pushing later clips along. |
| ⇧⌥ and a Media row | A track | Overwrite: replaces what’s in the way. |
| A Media row | The preview canvas | Places the clip on a new top track at the playhead. |
| Files from the Finder | The Media tab | Adds them to the project. |
| Files from the Finder | Anywhere else in the window | Opens each one as its own document, the same as dropping it on the Dock icon. |
| Files from the Finder | The Welcome window | Opens each one as its own document. |
Only the modifier keys you hold at the drop count.
A LUT row in the Media tab doesn’t drag. Apply a LUT with Clip ▸ Look ▸ or the Color tab. A drag between two open projects does nothing.
Canvas: selecting and moving
Section titled “Canvas: selecting and moving”| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Click a clip | Selects the front-most visible clip there. |
| ⇧-click a clip | Adds it to the selection, or removes it. |
| Click empty canvas | Deselects everything and leaves crop mode. With ⇧, it keeps the selection. |
| Drag a clip | Moves the selected clips by the same amount. |
A press on a selected clip’s handle takes the handle, even with another clip under it. Clips on locked tracks don’t move and can’t be clicked, and neither can clips on hidden tracks.
A drag snaps to the canvas centre, edges and thirds and to other layers’ edges and centres, within 8 points at any zoom, with guide lines. N turns this off, and holding ⌘ suspends it, even partway through a drag.
When an action is selected, a drag sets the value at that action’s end, not the clip’s own value.
To place a clip by the pixel, type its position, or nudge it with the arrow keys.
Canvas: scale, rotate and crop
Section titled “Canvas: scale, rotate and crop”| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Drag a corner or side handle | Scales, with the opposite handle pinned. Video, image, freeze frame and graphic clips always scale uniformly. |
| ⌥ while you drag a handle | Scales around the centre. |
| Drag the rotation handle | Rotates about the clip’s uncropped centre. |
| ⇧ while you rotate | Snaps to 15° steps. |
| Drag a crop handle, in crop mode | Crops, without shifting what’s left. A ghost shows the uncropped picture. |
| Double-click a video clip, image clip or freeze frame | Turns on crop mode. A shape, graphic or nest clip beeps, unless it’s on a matte track. |
A drag keeps scale between 0.01 and 10. A crop always leaves at least one source pixel.
Shapes and text have handles of their own:
- On a shape, ⇧ on a corner handle frees the aspect ratio, and a side handle changes only the width or the height. A drag keeps the box between 4 and 20,000 pixels.
- On a text clip, the left and right handles set the wrap width. The corners and the top and bottom handles scale the text uniformly.
Canvas: endpoints, regions and text
Section titled “Canvas: endpoints, regions and text”| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Drag a line or arrow endpoint | Moves that end of the shape. The box doesn’t change. |
| Drag an obscure region’s centre grip | Moves that region. |
| Drag one of its eight handles | Resizes the region. ⌥ resizes it around its centre. |
| Double-click a text clip | Edits the text in place, with the text selected and in the clip’s own font. |
Each side of a region stays between 1 and 20,000 source pixels. The grips show only with exactly one unlocked clip selected, outside crop mode. A drag inside the region but away from the grips still moves the clip.
The text editor stays upright on a rotated clip.
Canvas: zoom and pan
Section titled “Canvas: zoom and pan”| Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pinch, or ⌥ or ⌘ with the scroll wheel | Steps the canvas zoom through Fit, 50%, 100% and 200%. |
| Scroll | Pans a canvas that’s larger than the preview. It does nothing while the canvas fits. |
| Hold Space and drag | Pans a zoomed canvas that’s larger than the preview. A tap of Space still plays and pauses. |
Color tab controls
Section titled “Color tab controls”Hold ⌥ while you drag a wheel, a strip or a curve point to move at a tenth of the speed.
| Control | Gesture | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Wheel or strip | Double-click | Resets it. |
| Strip under a wheel | Press the knob | Grabs it. |
| Strip under a wheel | Press elsewhere | Jumps there. With ⌥, it drags from the current value without jumping. |
| Curve | Click or double-click an empty part of the plot | Adds a point and drags it. |
| Curve | ⇧ while you drag | Keeps the point on one axis, the one it moved most along after 4 pt of travel. |
| Curve | Double-click a point | Removes it. |
| Selected curve point | ⌫ or ⌦ | Removes it. |
| Selected curve point | The arrow keys | Nudge it. A tone curve steps by 0.01, or 0.1 with ⇧. A hue curve steps 1° across, or 10° with ⇧. |
| Selected curve point | ⎋ | Deselects it. |
| Qualifier strip | Drag a knob | Sets that edge of the range. |
| Qualifier strip | Drag a square | Sets the softness. |
| Qualifier strip | Drag the body | Moves the whole range. Hue wraps around. |
| Qualifier strip | Double-click | Resets it. |
| Vectorscope | Click a zoom cell | Changes its zoom, on the first click even when the window isn’t active. |
A curve holds up to 16 points and at least two, and it beeps past either limit. A point stays between its neighbours. Hovering over the plot shows the input and output at the pointer. To reset a whole curve, use the Reset item for its channel in the channel strip’s menu. See Buttons and context menus.
A qualifier range that’s switched off doesn’t respond to a press.