Why no CONTINUOUS SKIMMING like in iMovie 11?

I am switching from iMovie 11 to FCP10 and I am missing a feature big time.

Imagine you see the browser with your clips. Now you move the skimmer. I prefer to do this with a trackball, which helps me stay in the same line. When I use the trackpad I easily loose track and move the skimmer in a row below.

So what happens in FCPX when you reach the right side of the browser? The skimmer turns into a pointer and moves into the viewer. You have to move the position of the skimmer to the left, one line below and continue with your skimming, until you reach the right side again.

Is this tedious? Yes. Could this be done better? YES. Like in iMovie 11.

So what happens in iMovie 11 when you skim? With a trackball you just keep on scrolling. You don't have to reposition. You can skim though all your content and clips in the browser in one go.

How is this done? What happens with the cursor when you reach the right side in the browser in iMovie 11?

When you skim in the old iMovie 11 and you reach the right side of the browser the skimmer pointer magically moves one line below and goes on with the content in your clip. This means the cursor is kind of trapped in the box of the browser.

It can be that this confused a lot of people. Because being trapped in a window is not something you would normally expect. This is definitely a very exotic UI idea.

Anyway. My point is that I am desperately missing this feature in FCPX. Am I just missing something?

I would love to skim through my content as a first step in the browser. Set In and Out points and press "F" to set favourites. You might say you are as quick with J, K and L. But I don´t think so. You have to try this yourself in iMovie 11. You can go through your complete content so quickly, it is amazing. Using a trackball is the preferred method though.

Are there any Ex iMovie 11 users that are missing continuous skimming as well?
What are your tricks to quickly go through your content to mark favourites?




PS. What's strange is that I just tried it in iMovie. It works - but it works all the time. Before, you had to activate continuous skimming by pressing Caps Lock. I would prefer that you can activate it or not.

PPS. This does NOT work in the current iMovie - only in iMovie 11 (Version 9.0.9)

Fill out the feedback page, hope it comes back, but it's not in FCPX. Personally I use an Apple Magic Trackpad (2nd gen) and don't have issues like you mention. But everyone has their favorite device. As for your question, as I said, nope, you don't have that feature in FCPX.

Good idea. I just sent a feedback. Maybe we will get this feature in the future.

Actually I just tried my 1Gen Trackpad and I am not loosing my track. So either Trackball or Touchpad - both is great for skimming. Just if we could go on and on and on...

Hi AndreasV
Welcome to the forums.
AFAIK that type of skimming is not available in FCPX and not sure I would want it. To each their own.
You can now do continuous playback through clips and yes using the keyboard command JLK with multiple presses of same key to speed up then you can use the I/O keys to set the selection ranges and favorites/keywords can be very fast. Maybe give it a try and see if that workflow is a viable replacement for you.
Hope this helps, Greg

thanks for the welcome. And you are right. I am just testing continuous playback with JKL. That is a new workflow for me but I am sure, I will get used to it.

And F, U, Backspace and Control 1...9 and 0 is indeed very practical.

I assume you all use JKL IO U and Backspace with the right hand. Control 1...0 with the left.

My workflow just makes sense if you would keep the hand on the trackpad or trackball and do JKL with the left hand. That is kinda weird indeed.

I will relearn...

I spent 5 hours today to finally get into FCPX. And I found a great workflow that does continuous skimming.

I found it more or less by accident.

First it started with a puzzling situation. When I was in the transform interface skimming did not work. You have to click the "Fertig/Finished" button to close the transform interface. Only then skimming works again.

But while the normal skimmer did not work I realised that I can "skim" with the playhead. This is actually very handy with my trackball. You just have to keep the mouse button pressed and move the ball. This is not so practical on the trackpad,

And then I realised that when you keep on "skimming" with the playhead and reach the end of the timeline you would go on skimming. Depending on the region, you can skim with different speeds.

That way you can basically continuously skim through your whole project and also the timeline scrolls automatically.

This is nearly perfect. The only problem I have is that you have to be rather careful when you reach the side. Otherwise the speed is way to fast and you skim too far.

I also realised that you can actually do all the trimming while in transform mode. You skim the playhead and press command B or select Trim Start or Trim End.

Then you Option click to select the clip and you can transform right away, This speeds up my workflow a lot. I prefer this method to "normal" skimming now.

I am very happy with this workflow and already I don't miss my old iMovie method. I think I am getting more and more happy with FCP.