Snapping Toolbar

Snapping Toolbar enables you to snap the cursor or selection to the nearest whole second (or other whole time formats) which can be useful for exporting a selection that needs to be a whole number of seconds (or other time unit), without entering values in the Selection Toolbar boxes (which would be another way of ensuring accuracy). Snapping is "off" by default.

Various types of video file frame can be snapped to, including NTSC and PAL. Snapping to video frames can be useful to maintain video and audio synchronization when editing audio from video files.

If Snap is enabled, a track or clip willl be time-shifted using its Clip-handle drag-bar to the selected snapping format.

Even if Snap is enabled, the Tracks > Align Tracks command will still align to positions outside snap positions for the current format.

Settings

By default snapping is "off" and the format field is grayed out and inaccessible.

When you turn it "on" by clicking in the Snap checkbox you can then click on the down-chevron at the right of the format field to access the format menu enabling you to choose the snapping format you require.

Snapping

With Snap set "on" (not default) and the format set seconds (default), clicking in-between 6 seconds and 7 seconds as displayed on the Timeline snaps the cursor to the nearest second unit 6 or 7, unless the cursor is already exactly at the nearest second unit relative to the click point.

• Assuming the cursor is currently at other than exactly 6.0 whole seconds, clicking at 6.4 seconds will now snap the cursor to 6.0 seconds, while clicking at 6.8 seconds will snap the cursor to 7.0 seconds.
• Dragging a selection always snaps both selection edges to the nearest whole second. For example, when dragging rightwards on the right edge of a selection from 6.3 seconds to 6.6 seconds, the left edge of the selection will jump back at once to 6.0 seconds and the right edge of the selection will jump forwards at once to 7.0 seconds.
• If you continue to drag the mouse pointer, the right edge of the selection will not extend at once, but will snap to 8.0 seconds once the mouse pointer is dragged beyond 7.5 seconds. Similarly, if you then drag leftwards on the left edge of the selection it will extend to start from 5.0 seconds when the pointer is dragged before 5.5 seconds.

Snapping to whole seconds can be useful for exporting a selection that needs to be a whole number of seconds, without entering values in the Selection Toolbar boxes (which would be another way of ensuring accuracy).

Various types of file frame can be snapped to, including NTSC and PAL. Snapping to video frames can be useful to maintain video and audio synchronization when editing audio from video files.