Category Archives: Absolute Essentials

An A Shortcut for A Saturday

By Shortcutter | Published: Saturday, May 1, 2010

OK, it’s time for our super-basic Saturday shortcut, so prepare to groan as I insult your intelligence with one of the most basic shortcuts of them all: As you certainly should know, this is the shortcut for the “Selection Tool” and while I realize most readers of this blog know about this one, I am giving [...]

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Where Is That Playhead?

By Shortcutter | Published: Friday, March 5, 2010

In addition to knowing how to switch windows (or “focus”), you need to know how to quickly position your Playhead without using the mouse. These two initial skills are critical because if you’re not using them, you break up the rhythm of shortcut workflows and the shortcuts you do use won’t seem very rewarding. You [...]

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On the Subject of Customization

By Shortcutter | Published: Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Today’s entry presents a shortcut that I feel should really never be used as it raises the important “meta issue” of keyboard customization. Final Cut Pro provides an excellent mechanism for customizing keyboard shortcuts via the Tools>Keyboard Layout>Customize menu. There’s even a shortcut to get to it: OPT H, but please don’t use it! To customize or [...]

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Where Are You?

By Shortcutter | Published: Thursday, February 25, 2010

To use keyboard shortcuts in Final Cut Pro effectively, you need to know exactly where you are in the interface at all times. The results of using certain shortcuts often differ depending on which window (i.e., Browser, Viewer, Canvas, Timeline) is active or, to use the more correct term, has “focus” at the moment. Therefore, [...]