OK smart asses, let’s see if you knew about THIS tool. Now, I know this one has been around for a while but I for one never touched it. I actually just thought it was something cosmetic. Just the way the timeline looked. But then my buddy Paul, who I share a bay with, fiddled with it (he was bored). And he figured out what it did.

What is it? Well, I have no clue what it is called, but here is a picture:

The part of the timeline that straddles V1 and A1…to the left of the tool pallet. Next to the pen tool. ON the timeline. Here, lemme zoom in:

THAT thing. I bet most of you didn’t know this did anything did you? I didn’t, as I said, I thought this was cosmetic. IT ISN’T! It has a function, and Paul figured it out.

I is a scroll lock…a VERTICAL scroll lock. Lemme try to explain this. If you have 12 layers of video, and 18 layers of audio, and your timeline doesn’t fill the screen, you always need to scroll up and down to see things. But what if you always want to see V1, or V1 and V2? Well, drag this up and it will lock the track so they never scroll out of site. V2 on up will move, but not V1. Look:

See, it draws a little BOX around the track. All you need to do is grab the top tab and pull it up one notch. Want to cover two tracks? You can do that too:

And you can do the same with audio.

HOW COOL IS THAT? And don’t you tell me “oh, I have been doing this for years…where have you BEEN Shane?” I don’t want to hear it! Well, OK, maybe I do. I would like to know if people knew about this…but more from people who will tell me “GREAT find Shane! Thanks!”

Don’t thank me…Thank Paul.