editing clips within the browser

I discovered this feature quite by accident one day, and I really messed up my edit. It's the ability to edit clips within the browser, and have those changes saved to the clips in the browser. Now, I'm not talking about editing the clips in the timeline, I'm talking about opening a specific clip in its own timeline window and being able to edit it in that window. I have included a picture that shows what that window looks like. Its sorta greyed out on the sides to show where the edit lines are. Now I swear that double clicking a clip in the timeline opened up that window, but now I can't seem to make it happen. Does anybody know how to activate this feature?

Now, I found a reference by Larry Jordan from about 2012 to something called "open in timeline" where you right click on a clip in the browser and it opens it up in a new timeline of its own. I'm sure this is exactly what I'm talking about, as the pic that I just posted is from that web page, and thats exactly what it looks like when I have it open on my computer too.

So my situation is I have this clip saved in my browser, but it has an audio track attached to it, and I want to either mute the audio, or just separate the audio and delete it, then have the new version saved back to the same location in my browser window. I swear it was "double click" but apparently it is not? Anybody know how to do this?

Open Clip in the Clip menu. Be careful with this because you are editing in the clip container. Do not edit additional content into it.

As a rule, I never touch the clip's own Timeline, as you are altering the original. There used to be an option in the pop-up menu when you would right-click a clip in the Browser, but some versions back they removed that and it's now only in the Clip menu, as Tom said.

Tom Wolsky wrote: Open Clip in the Clip menu. Be careful with this because you are editing in the clip container. Do not edit additional content into it.

What do you mean? Open clip in the clip menu... but how exactly do you do that?

You select the clip in the browser that you want to open in the Timeline. You go to Clip in the menu bar at the top of the screen, and from the drop menu, choose the item Open Clip.

Tom Wolsky wrote: Open Clip in the Clip menu.

"...and it's now only in the Clip menu, as Tom said."

Yes! Thats it! There must be a keyboard shortcut to do that... I've ended up here a few times, but not by menu/ciip/open clip. You can also select the clip within the timeline and do the same thing. I think thats what was happening with me, I was selecting the ciip in the timeline and hitting some shortcut key by accident. also... how do you close it? lol

You don't close it. You just open something else into the timeline. You can create a keyboard shortcut for it in the Command Editor in the FCP menu.

What are you doing that needs you to go in there so often that it would need a keyboard shortcut? I think I've only gone there a few times in nine years.

I don't need to go there! Thats the thing, One day I'm working on a project and suddenly randomly this "new" timeline opens. I dunno how I got there or what I did, and I don't remember starting this timeline. Also, its a timeline I have never seen before, with these grey walls. So I delete the clip.

Three hours later, after finding and replacing red "file missing" clips punctuated throughout my main timeline, and having to re-import the clip cause... it was just gone (where did it go??) I realized I probably shouldn't have deleted that weird clip in that weird timeline.

So ya... now I know what it is, and how to get there, I will probably never actually use it. It's not set up as a shortcut under custom shortcut keys so I have no idea how I opened it without going menu/clip/open clip. Maybe I've discovered a bug in FCPX? I'll post here if I re-discover how I opened it accidentally.

But knowing what it is, and what its used for is a huge step in not looking at my computer monitor and saying "what fresh new hell is this?!?"

I am quite sure that you probably have opened the "Precision Editor" which is different than opening a clip in its own timeline. The Precision Editor is opened when you double click the edit point between two clips, and that can happen easily if you are editing quickly. Here's Apples document on that: support.apple.com/guide/final-cut-pro/us...itor-verc1fac344/mac

OR...you have opened a compound clip by double clicking the clip (maybe that is the grey walls you mention).

It was the compound clip!! That makes sense now... I remember all the footage from that particular shoot had been compounded because Tony wore a lavalier mic! Now this is all making sense. I thought I was going mad cause I'm like "I know I double clicked it!".

Ok, so now I got that figured out, why is it you can open compound clips with a double click AND menu/clip/open clip, but regular clips you cannot double click but ONLY menu/clip/open clip?

And can you turn off the ability to double click a compound clip to open it, and change a setting so ONLY menu/clip/open clip opens a compound clip?

At least now I understand it all now. Thanks everyone with their input!

You can’t switch off the double click for compounds.

You can’t double click a clip because over the years too many people have been doing stupid things in the clip container like editing entire projects into it. They’ve been cutting back access to clips because of this and have now reduced it to a single menu item with no shortcut, though of course you can add your own.