- About Easy Setups, Presets, Settings, and Preferences
- Using Easy Setups
- Specifying User Preferences and System Settings
- Setting Editing Preferences
- Customizing the Timeline Display
- Specifying Render Control Settings
- Setting Scratch Disk Preferences
- Specifying Memory & Cache Settings
- Specifying Playback Control Settings
- Setting External Editors Preferences
- Customizing Final Cut Express
- Creating Custom Screen Layouts
- Creating Custom Shortcut Buttons
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Creating Custom Shortcut Buttons
Use FCE's button bar ( Figure 3.19 ) to personalize your workspace by adding custom shortcut buttons to the button bars located at the top of the Viewer, Canvas, Browser, Timeline, and Voice Over tool windows. There's a button available for virtually every FCE command.
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Figure 3.19 You can arrange shortcut buttons in the button bar found at the top of major program windows. You can group and color-code buttons and save and load custom button bar sets.
FCE lets you save multiple button bar toolsets, so you can easily switch to a button bar that complements your current editing task. You can:
- Rearrange the button order.
- Add spacers to organize your buttons into groups.
- Change the color of a button.
- Copy or move a button from one window to another.
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Save custom button bars.
For all the details on managing custom buttons, see Chapter 5 of Apple's Final Cut Express Help PDF.
To create a custom shortcut button:
- Control-click the button bar area at the top of the window; then choose Show Button List from the shortcut menu (
Figure 3.20
).
The Button List window appears, displaying a complete list of commands.
Figure 3.20 Control-click; then choose Show Button List from the button bar's shortcut menu.
- To find the command you want to make into a shortcut button, do one of the following:
- Click the expansion triangle next to the name of the command's group to reveal the command in the list.
- Enter the command's name or a keyword in the Search field. Commands matching the search term are displayed automatically (
Figure 3.21
).
Figure 3.21 Searching the button list for commands containing the word gain returns four Gain commands.
- Click the Search field to view the command list alphabetically.
- Drag the command from the list to the button bar location where you want the button to appear (
Figure 3.22
).
The button appears in the location you've selected ( Figure 3.23 ).
Figure 3.22 Drag the command from the list to the button bar.
Figure 3.23 The button appears in the new location. You can use the color-coding options in the button bar shortcut menu to tint the buttons.
- Close the Button List window.
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To delete a button:
Do one of the following:
- Control-click the shortcut button and then choose Remove > Button from the shortcut menu.
- Drag the button off the bar and release the mouse button.
The button disappears in a puff of animated smoke (
Figure 3.24
).
Figure 3.24 Drag the shortcut button off the button bar and watch it disappear in a puff of smoke—kinda like Road Runner. Speaking of cartoon animals ...
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