- Change the Size of Text in the Browser and Timeline
- Zooming the Timeline
- Zooming Faster
- The Two Fastest Ways to Zoom
- Vertical Movement
- Image Quality in the Viewer vs. the Canvas
- Monitor Your Video Full Screen
- Remove Scroll Bars for Better Playback
- Back to Square One
- iChat Theater
- Green Is Not Just for Stoplights
- Visibility Lights and the Arrow Keys
- More Visibility Shortcuts
- The Secrets of the Right-Pointing Arrow
- Displaying Audio or Video Clip Names
- Display a Filmstrip of Images in the Timeline
- Displaying Source or Auxiliary Timecode
- Display Field Interlacing
- Duplicating Browser Clips
- Sorting Browser Columns
- Sorting Out Multiple Issues
- A Faster Way to Move Columns
- Customize Browser Columns
- Searching Browser Columns
- Searching Effects
- Viewing Thumbnails in the Browser
- Display Images Instead of Names in the Browser
- Fancy Light Table Tricks
- More Browser Fun
- Browser Keyboard Shortcuts
- Hidden Tricks with Tabs
- Jumping Between Tabs
- Riddle Me a Riddle
- Selecting Multiple Clips
- Selecting an Edit Point
- Using Range Selection
- Get Moving with Timecode
- Locking Tracks
- Toggling Display Modes
- Scrolling the Timeline
- Scrubbing the Playhead
- Find the Missing Playhead
- Scrubbing Timeline Thumbnails
- Discover Project Properties
- Markers Got Spiffed Up
- Markers Can Be Moved!
- A Better Way to Move Between Markers
- Reading Clip Markers
- Using Markers to Log Footage
- Deleting Multiple Clip Markers
- Markers Have Default Colors
- Using Markers in Multiclips
- Option Means Opposite
- Other Option Key Tricks
- The Fastest Way to Find a Keyboard Shortcut
- I Feel the Need—for Speed!
- Create a Custom Keyboard Shortcut
- “A”—An Amazing Authority
- Wonderful, Wacky, W
- How to Remove a Button
- Creating a Custom Button
- Reset/Remove All Buttons in a Button Bar
- Additional Thoughts
Green Is Not Just for Stoplights
What those green buttons can show you.
On the left side of the Timeline is a series of green buttons, which I’ll call “green visibility lights.” There is one light for each track. These buttons are enormously powerful, but quite shy—they rarely tell us how much power they have.
When a green light is lit, everything on that track is visible (or audible). When a green light is dark, everything on that track is invisible (or inaudible).
But the impact of these buttons is much deeper than this. These buttons control output and export. If the light is dark, nothing on that track will be seen, heard, rendered, output, or exported.
You can use these buttons in a variety of ways:
- To see a clip hidden below another clip
- To keep source audio files in the Timeline but only hear the final mix
- To switch between displaying, say, English title keys (on track 4) and Spanish title keys (on track 5)
- To display/hide clips that you move from one section of a sequence to another, as you figure out which clip you want to use
These visibility lights give you the power to control exactly what is displayed and what is hidden.