When you have a video selected, the Properties tab shows the properties of that particular clip. With video clips in your playlist, you can start by choosing the clip you want to use first, and dragging it down to the bottom of the window into the Timeline. If you started off clicking and dragging, be sure to click on File > Save Asâ€¦ and save your project. These are the tools you'll be using most of the time (however, I haven't used Properties much).

You'll most likely see Playlist, Filters, Properties and Export. Notice that at the bottom of the Playlist window, there are some tabs. You can choose Open, or you can position your file manager near Shotcut, highlight the clips you want to use, and then click and drag them over to the Playlist window on the left. Or, you can start by adding some files to your Playlist. You can start off by entering a name for your project, and designating the folder you're saving it to using the New Project window. Once you have a file to play, the New and Recent sections will be replaced by the screen for the video player. Below the New and Recent windows you will see the controls for the player.

Across the top of the window are several tools you will use (Open, Save, Undo, Redo) plus buttons for something you may have closed (Peak Meter, Playlist, Timeline or Filters).Īcross the middle of the window is the Playlist, the New Project window, the Recent Projects window, the Peak Meter (that's the vertical line of numbers) and the Jobs window. Wow! There's a lot of stuff there! Some of it you can close, but it's actually arranged pretty well, with some of the important items in tabs. When you open it, you get the following window:

Installing Shotcut is very quick and easy. I won't pretend I know everything about it, but this article might get you started if you're interested.

While working on my project, I have gotten started learning Shotcut. I also frequently take my work laptop to another office, and wanted to be able to work there as well. I chose Shotcut, knowing I could use it on my work computer (Windows) and my home computer (PCLinuxOS, of course!). Both have Windows versions as well, and both are in our repo. I wasn't sure how to do that, or even what editor to use, but Shotcut and Avidemux were recommended to me as good programs. I recently took on a project at work which involved editing videos.

Shotcut zoom in video