Final Cut Pro X: Secrets of the Timeline Index

NOTE: This is Part 1 of a 2-part series on the Timeline Index. Part 2, covering Roles, is here.

If you haven’t explored the Timeline Index in Final Cut Pro X recently, you’re missing a great resource that can help you with editing and organization.

You’ll find it quietly nestled into the top left corner of the timeline.

There are three sections to the Index:

• Clips
• Tags
• Roles

Roles are deeply complex and deserve its own article or two. You’ll find links at the end of this article to learn more. For today, I want to look at the first two options: clips and tags.

INDEX > CLIPS

The Clips panel provides a very fast way to:

• See the clips, titles, and transitions you have in the current project
• Select one or more clips
• Move the playhead to a selected clip
• View just video, audio, or title clips

I mentioned the “current project.” The Timeline Index only displays elements in the project that is currently displayed in the Timeline.

To change the width of a column, drag a divider separating the different column headers.

To change the contents of a column, right-click (Control-click) a column header. Checked items are visible, unchecked are not.

To filter the clips in the active project to show just those that are video, audio, or titles, click the appropriate filter button at the bottom.

To select one, or more, clips in the timeline select them in the Index.

NOTE: Shift-click to select a range. Command-click to select arbitrary clips.

The benefit of selecting a group of clips like this is that you can quickly apply an effect to all selected clips, even if they are not next to each other in the timeline.

Selecting a clip, or a range of clips, instantly jumps the playhead to the first (earliest) clip in the selected group.

NOTE: I often find myself viewing just the text in the titles to verify that it is spelled correctly. This is faster than viewing each clip in the timeline, though I WISH!!! the Index would float so I could make it bigger to better read each clip.

I find myself using the Index to quickly navigate complex projects, though, I confess I don’t use it for anything short simply because when there’s only a few clips in the edit it is easy to move between clips in the timeline itself.

INDEX > TAGS

This is the section of the Index that I find myself using the most.

The buttons at the bottom filter the tags to limit the view to just:

• Markers
• Keywords
• To-do markers
• Completed markers
• Chapter markers

Click any of the filters at the bottom to see just those tags. You can only select one filter at a time.

Even for short projects, the option I find myself using the most is displaying just chapter markers. This allows me to make sure all markers are formatted and spelled correctly before outputting my master file and heading into compression.

SUMMARY

The Timeline Index is an extremely useful tool that is easy to overlook, because it doesn’t call attention to itself. But, the more you use it, the more uses you’ll find for it.

EXTRA CREDIT

• Here’s a video that describes Roles and how to use the Timeline Index with them.
• Here’s an article that explains how to use Roles with titles and audio.

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