I'm new to FC and having trouble making drag and drop swap/shuffle edits in the timeline. This should be really straight forward. Everything I've read says drag the clip into position then press option/alt and release. But half the time the clip overwrites, leaving a copy of itself in the original position. But then sometimes it does work - what's going on here? Anyone else have this problem? Am I missing something really obvious?

The second behavior happens if you hold the option key before you select the clip.

The key is to look at the cursor icon. If it looks like an arrow that goes left or right but the head of the arrow is curved downward, that indicates that it'll swap edits. If the arrow is pointed straight down or straight to the right, that indicates an overwrite or insert edit.

Andy

Thanks for your comments - problem is that it overwrites even when the curved arrow appears. That's the bit i don't get, it's overwriting when should be swapping.

Instead of messing with Swap Edit, you might want to just use Copy/Paste or just drag them. I find Swap Edit to be very fussy. Besides, it's very rare that two pieces fit in the exact spot without changes.


www.derekmok.com

Make sure that you don't release the keys first, or at the same time as releasing the mouse button. So, drag sideways to the place you want to insert, then hold down option/apple, then release the mouse - the clips should swap - then release the keyboard keys.

There's another thing you have to watch out for when mousing clips. I'm not completely sure it is relevant to this type of edit. There's a horizontal line running through the track. If you let go above this line it will overwrite, and below that line it will insert.

> There's another thing you have to watch out for when mousing clips. I'm not completely sure
> it is relevant to this type of edit.

Not this operation in particular, but a good general thing to know.
Also, if you set Timeline Options - Track Size to Reduced (as I do), then the divider line will be gone and Insert option will be eliminated, which is how I myself like it.


www.derekmok.com

ep4 of our Hot Tips podcast covers this:
http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/podcast/

Martin Baker
[www.digital-heaven.co.uk]
Unique plug-ins and tools for Apple Pro Apps

Thanks everyone!

I think I've cracked it now - I was releasing the option a little too quickly, resulting in a copy/overwrite instead of a swap. Keeping the option key held down after releasing the mouse - it works every time.

But another little query has just popped up - sometimes it refuses to make a swap edit for for a seemingly different reason. When the option key is held down, instead of the curved arrow appearing, I get a regular pointer arrow with a little x next to it, implying that this operation cannot be done. Releasing the mouse/option key the timeline and clips stay as they were. Any thoughts?

There are certain situations where the swap edit function won't work. Basically where you would have an irreconcilable splitting of tracks or some such.

For instance. If your linking is on and you grab a clip (video and audio) and try to swap it with another where the video edit point is fine, but the audio below that video track is unbroken or not cut at that point (like an L cut), then FCP won't allow the swap. You'd have to make an add edit on the audio as well in order to swap the shots.

Also, before you wonder, you can only swap one clip at a time. You can't lasso several clips and swap them like you can on an Avid.

Andy