Hi Terry,

We discussed this before a few months ago. Changing the object length using the right-click method causes all other objects at the right to shift by the amount of the change. Other than dragging the end, the only other way is to us the Object trimmer - Shift+N and make the adjustment using the arrows. To make the object shorter (or longer) see the image below.

I find that I am using both the object and edit trimmers much more, now that I know how to use them.

I change the transition lengths using the edit trimmer so as not to mess up other objects on the track.

Mike,

It's consistent across projects. I still regard it as a bug. Despite the acknowledged difficulties (particularly the different treatment needed for video versus images) it could have been coded more intelligently.

John,

Is this the thread you mean?
https://www.magix.info/us/forum/more-unexpected-behaviour--1190086/

Also found many older ones on loosely related topics that kept me away from productive work (and husbandly chores) for a while, such as these:

https://www.magix.info/us/forum/how-do-i-crossfade-2-objects-without-moving-the-rest-of-the-timeline-forward--1072739/

https://www.magix.info/uk/forum/puzzling-results-changing-object-lengths--1176212/

At least the search reminded me that locking an appropriate track offers a workarond in some cases. At other times I go for no-brainer and more intuitive methods like separating objects, moving them to no-man's land areas or even new temporary movies, etc.

Afraid I still haven't matched your skills with the Object Trimmer!

I do have a four macros that use it though: 0.5s fade in, 0.5 fade out, both, and one that restores the sadly lost facility to fade out A to black and fade in B from black. Can't understand why that was dropped. Nor the facility to allow Cut (no fade) to close a gap.

But I stray...

Hi Terry

. . . . the sadly lost facility to fade out A to black and fade in B from black . . . .

You lost me on that one!

In MEPP the effect is still there, both in the Trimmer Editor when you click the Fx button - see below, and the transition buttons on the individual clips.

We have had a discussion before on part of the above, the only difference is when applied it looks like a standard crossfade - this change of display was introduced in MEP 2015

You can also change the colour of the fade through by clicking the transition button and select Settings

. . . . Nor the facility to allow Cut (no fade) to close a gap. . . .

This was by design as confirmed by Magix.

HTH

John EB

Hi John,

"You lost me on that one!"

I'm not surprised as on re-checking it looks like I'm quite mistaken.😊

But apart from the trivial different representation, was there not a period when the full fade to black and back of 'Thru black' was changed to a definite cross-fade? IOW, with no point of complete blackness? I thought so, and promptly rolled my own. But I have apparently never returned to check until now, when I see it's fine. One macro to delete!

Re 'Cut (no fade)', can you remind me what the advantage was of dropping the ability to use that to close any small gap? Come to that, why is it now even accessible, not greyed, as it does nothing?

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

. . . . Re 'Cut (no fade)', can you remind me what the advantage was of dropping the ability to use that to close any small gap? . . . .

Good question - there was no reason given why, IIRC however, from my experience of many other NLE editors, very few of them had the cut also closing the gap.

The reason for dropping it may also be a related issue to the strange behaviour Crossfade had - the length of the crossfade would be, if using the default 1 sec length, 1 second minus the gap length (if the gap was less than 1 sec) or some arbitrary length if the gap was greater than 1 sec.

HTH

John EB

Hi Terry,

Changing the object length affects the right end and thus everything to the right.

The object trimmer (Shift+N) allows you to move the left end of an object to increase (if possible) or decrease the length, without moving adjacent objects. Using the left arrow of what I showed you, moves the left end of the selected object to the left (if possible, and it is possible with an image or a video clip that has had its left end trimmed) and creates a transition if there is an object at the left. The right button (at the left) trims the left end of the object and can have an impact on the object to the left. If the left object is an image, the image length will be extended to make sure that there is no gap. If a video, if the right end has not been trimmed, then a gap will open up. If the right end has been trimmed, then the left video clip will be extended up to its end and then a gap will open up.

Try this out and you will see the beauty of this tool. Use it every time that you want to trim the front end of a clip without moving objects that are to the right, and you will soon start to get comfortable with the trimmer.

I'm back in Africa for the week, leaving on Friday. This time I went through Munich and go home via Frankfurt. Back to work for the evening.

John CB