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BrianLevin
Known Participant
February 25, 2025
Open for Voting

Toggle direct manipulation pauses playback and cannot be enabled or disabled via shortcut key

  • February 25, 2025
  • 5 replies
  • 907 views

The new Toggle Direct Manipulation is a feature I understand why it exists, for those users who don't really know the deep ins and outs of the program. But by changing it you have instead caused several more problems than you actually fixed.

 

1. If you had enabled Toggle Direct Manipulation then it remains on for all other clips you select. If you select a clip during playback, playback pauses as a result of the Toggle being on, and it must be turned off. Selecting and manipulating clips during playback is one of your biggest edges over, say, Avid.

 

2. Toggle Direct Manipulation can be enabled via a shortcut key inside of the Program Monitor, but that shortcut key only works if the Program Monitor is selected. It needs to work across all panels in the entire program so that it can be turned on and off at will, specifically from the timeline.

 

In previous iterations of Premiere I could hit a shortcut to enable manipulation, then do my work, and when I was done go back to editing with no further action needed, but now you've added the completely unnecessary extra step of turning it off.

 

The way it should work is that it is always off, all the time, and is only on when you turn it on. After you complete manipulation it should return to being off by default, and only be re-enabled if the user wants it to be.

5 replies

Known Participant
October 9, 2025

+1... so annoying

Participant
August 14, 2025

Noticed this more and more recently it is very jarring having to turn it on/off this often when in previous versions it was seamless. I would appreciate this being changed.

Participant
July 25, 2025

I agree. This might be the final push toward DaVinci Resolve for me. Adobe seems to make the user experience more difficult for old users on purpose.

Stan Jones
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 28, 2025

@BrianLevin,

 

Upvoted.

 

Also see my post here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/quot-toggle-transform-direct-manipulation-quot-keyboard-shortcut-inconsistency/m-p/15293497#M560133

 

> that shortcut key only works if the Program Monitor is selected.

I did not find that was true, unless custom shortcuts from the earlier version were being used. Every so often, I believe it is good to start from the new version default shortcuts and recreate your custom file. But I also believe the .kys file can be edited to remove that whole manipulation item under context.timeline. The original shortcut then worked from the timeline.

 

Stan

 

Inspiring
February 25, 2025

I HEAVILY agree with this, it was super random and confusing to me recently why selecting a clip during playback was suddenly pausing playback. Personally I have no need at all for the direct manipulation feature and never go out of my way to manually enable it - it would be nice if premiere didn't just auto enable (or at least FORCE enable it). If I move on, it should revert back to its previous state or at least not pause playback

Kevin-Monahan
Community Manager
Community Manager
February 25, 2025

 

Moving to the Ideas forum.

 

Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community & Engagement Strategist – Pro Video and Audio