The editor

A tour of the project editor, from the Director and the stage to the timeline, undo, comments and sharing.

The editor opens when you open a project. It has a title bar, a tool bar, a left panel for the Director, a stage in the middle, a bottom panel with the timeline, and a right panel for the project's structure.

Find your way around

Title bar. Project tabs, the project name, the save state, the render status, Share, and your account. You can keep several projects open as tabs.
Tool bar. The menu, Undo and Redo, then Select, Audio (opens the timeline), Script, Comments and Play. On the right is the view switch: Design, Animate and Script.
Left panel. The Director chat. Collapse it with [.
Stage. The picture. What it shows depends on the view.
Bottom panel. Tabs for Timeline, Mixer, Console, Problems, Changes, Takes, Forks and Comments.
Right panel. Hierarchy lists chapters and scenes. Assets lists the project's music, narration, sound effects and media. Selecting something shows its properties below. Collapse the panel with ].

Open the menu for Open recent, Open project…, Save, Undo, Redo, Render to MP4…, Project settings… and Keyboard shortcuts.

Press Shift ? to see every keyboard shortcut. You can search the list or filter it by group.

Pick a view

The view switch changes what the stage shows.

Design. Every scene of the chapter laid out as a board. Use it to see the whole chapter at once. Fit (or F) fits all boards in the window.
Animate. One preview of the film with the playback controls underneath.
Script. The script as a document, with narration, voice and captions. Preview shows or hides a floating preview.

Work with the Director

The Director is the chat in the left panel. Type what you want changed and press ⌘↵ to send. Type @ to reference a scene, a theme, music, media, a voice or a comment. Type / to open quick actions.

The panel's agent settings choose how much the Director does on its own:

Ask. Plans and edits, then checks with you before it spends credits on voice or scenes.
Build. Voices and generates new content as it goes, voiceover first and then scenes, without stopping to ask. This spends credits.

Use the Add button to attach media or reference a scene. Stop generating cancels a run in progress.

Select and edit a scene

In Hierarchy, click a chapter to open it. Click a scene to select it. Click a board in Design or a clip in the timeline to do the same.
Right-click a scene for its menu. It includes Go to scene, Focus on this scene, Back on its words and Delete scene.
Select an element on a scene to edit it in the right panel. You can change its text, retime it, show or hide it, and change its stacking order. You can also Duplicate or Delete it.
For bigger changes, tell the Director which scene you mean and what to change.

Shift-click selects a range of scenes. ⌘-click or Ctrl-click adds or removes one scene from the selection.

Right-click a scene or chapter and choose Focus on this scene or Focus on this chapter to hide the rest from your view. Hidden scenes stay in the film. A hidden chip appears in Hierarchy, and Show all brings them back.

Play and scrub

The transport sits above the timeline: Previous scene, Previous frame, Play or Pause, Next frame, Next scene and Loop. The speed button cycles the playback speed.

Key	Does
`Space`	Play or pause
`←` `→`	Step one frame
`Alt` `←` `→`	Previous or next scene
`C`	Loop the selection

Drag in the strip above the timeline ruler to make a loop region. Drag its ends to resize it and right-click it to clear it.

Read the timeline

Press T to show or hide the timeline. Press 0 to fit the whole film. Use - and = to zoom out and in, or hold ⌘ or Ctrl and scroll.

Drag the bar above the panel to resize it. Right-click a track header for Mute, Solo, Rename and Hide track. Right-click a clip to split it at the playhead (B).

Voice is drawn as waveform under the words. Gap boxes between lines mark pauses. Resize one to lengthen a pause or trim a natural silence.

Mix the audio

Open the Mixer tab for a strip each for Voice, Music and SFX, plus one for every audio lane. Each strip has a fader, a meter, M (mute) and S (solo). Double-click a fader to return it to 0 dB. The Monitor strip is the output.

See Voice and music for ducking and beat sync.

Undo, history and versions

Undo and Redo are in the tool bar. Use ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z on a Mac, or Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z elsewhere.
If a teammate changed the same thing after you, Typecut can refuse the undo and tells you who changed it. You can then choose Undo anyway.
The Changes tab lists every change with who made it. Filter by person, kind of change or scene. Open a change to Undo this change, or choose Restore the version before this.
The Takes tab holds earlier versions of a scene. Preview one on the stage. A banner then offers Keep this take or Back to current.
The Forks tab makes a Fork (a copy you can keep editing) or a Snapshot (a frozen, hidden copy to come back to).

The title bar shows Unsaved changes, Saving…, Saved or Save failed. Typecut saves as you work. ⌘S saves right away.

Check problems

The Problems tab lists what is not ready. If scenes still need pictures or voiceover, it shows how many and offers a Generate button with the cost in credits. The Console tab is a running log of what the editor just did.

Leave comments

Open Comments from the tool bar or the bottom panel. Click the pencil to leave a note, then choose what it points at: Playhead, Scene or Project. Press ⌘↵ to send.

Reply on a thread, or use Resolve to close it and Reopen to bring it back.
Filter by status (Open, Resolved, All) or group by date, scene or most edited.
Go to scene jumps the stage to where a note points.

Click Share in the title bar to get a share link. Choose Render to MP4… from the menu to make the final video. See Getting started.

Project settings

Open Project settings… from the menu. Its tabs are General, Look, Voice, Captions, Branding, Brief and Preferences. The other guides cover themes, voice and music, and captions.

Next: Themes

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