New shortcuts to choose where to PASTE 'on the fly'! (highest, lowest or same video track)

[Pierre Louis B.]

Timeline pasting is a daily, 'everybody-uses-it' editing function. So why has it still not been improved?

Vastly improving pasting is simple: Give users the ability to choose 'on the fly' where they want their media pasted or insert-pasted:
1. on the lowest enabled track (current behavior)
2. on the highest enabled track
3. on the same track in was copied from

By providing new shortcut options, EVERYONE would be happy:
1. Users who like the current way pasting works wouldn't notice any difference.
2. Users who want media pasted to the highest enabled track where there's always the most free space to paste into would simply need to assign keyboard shortcuts to the 2 new functions offered: paste and insert paste to highest enabled track. If they plan on using these new options most or all of the time, they could set it to the default Ctrl+V and Ctrl+Shift+V shortcuts, while assigning other shortcuts to the current Paste/Paste Insert functions, should they ever want to use them.
3. Users who would like media pasted/insert-pasted to the same video tracks it was copied from would also be taken care of, with 2 new keyboard shortcut-assignable functions. Once again, if this is the pasting method the user wishes to use most or all of the time, they could assign their current keyboard shortcuts to these 2 new functions, while giving new shortcuts to paste/insert paste to the highest and/or lowest video track, should they so choose.

Given how often editors need to paste media on their timeline, this should be given priority over other new features that, while useful, may only ever be used seldomly by few editors.

In case the benefit of allowing editors to paste to the highest enabled track is still not evident enough, please see the attached illustrations. In the all-too common editing example/'Game' illustrated, pasting to the highest vs the lowest enabled track would require 2 steps vs 5.

PLEASE improve timeline pasting! It's long overdue. Thank you!!!

[Alex Elkins]

And 'paste into new track'.

[Pierre Louis B.]

Hi Alex, by 'paste into new track' do you mean Pr should automatically create a new video track to paste into?

[Alex Elkins]

Yes

[TaranVH]

This should be merged into
https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/35314639--paste-onto-same-t...

[Pierre Louis B.]

Hi TaranVH, how can I merge my FR into the one you suggest? I'm not sure how to do that. Thank you!

BTW, I'd love to see you on the FB group I started for discussing ways we can help Adobe improve Pr. Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1638270639681590/

🙂

[aTomician]

What's the point of discussing software changes on facebook if Adobe don't pick it up? If you do it all here, Adobe can stay in touch with the discussions.

[Pierre Louis B.]

Hi Tom,

The point of the Facebook group is to offer another venue where people who care about Pr can discuss ways to improve our favorite NLE. It isn't a replacement to Adobe User Voice, but rather an addition to it, with posts linking back to official FRs here. Plus there are some Adobe reps in the group. It's a new group, so it's still very small, so if you'd like to check it out and join, you're more than welcome!

[autokroma]

I agree with Pierre Louis, the Facebook group is really nice ! Good information, good discussion there

[Trevor_Asq]

I’m in favour of the FB pressure too - lots more folks interact there. Both FB & UV are pretty rubbish for searching though.

[aTomician]

Fair play 👍 didn't know Adobe reps would join, sometimes it feels like they like to keep just a leeeetle bit of distance between them and their customers.... although there's definitely exceptions! Will look you guys up.

[FinalAdobePro]

I'd vote paste to same track, but actually I think the bigger issue here is that the best choice is always whatever the editor decides, but the current means of choosing which track to paste to is cumbersome which is why this issue even needs to be discussed. Track activation determines where the clip pastes to, but in order to specify which track, one needs to jump through a few hoops except in ideal circumstances where no tracks are currently activated.

If there was a deselect all tracks command. https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/35351707-deselect-all-track...
Then you could pick which track to paste 2 in as little as 2 steps. First, deactivate all tracks, then press a key for which track you'd like pasted to.

That said though, it'd be nice if, when multiple tracks are activated, or when no tracks are activated, the default behaviour were paste to the existing track. It's the least ambiguous as you typically expect things to go to the same place as previously unless otherwise stated. Like saving a project or exporting a video defaults to the last place you selected for either of those things.

[Pierre Louis B.]

Hi James,

You wrote "but the current means of choosing which track to paste to is cumbersome". I agree. The option to paste to the highest enabled track would solve this problem once and for all.

Imagine a sequence with 5 video tracks that are always enabled. You only ever place media on V1-V4. This means that V5 would always be free to paste into without zero risk of overwriting something by mistake, and no need to ever adjust which tracks are enabled beforehand. Problem solved! (Note: If you copy or cut/paste media that occupied 2 or more tracks, new V tracks will automatically be created. To continue pasting to V5, simply don't enable any of the newly created tracks)

Editing in a timeline with no tracks enabled is impractical given Pr's reliance on track enabling for basic shortcuts to work (cut, go to next/previous edit point, etc.)

[Trevor_Asq]

My problem with pasting in this way is those extra tracks above v5 now need managing / deleting (same as crazy way PP creates extra timeline tracks when source audio tracks exceed the number of target audio tracks ).

BTW You could get this behaviour (paste time newly created tracks) with current arrangement- just lock all tracks before pasting.

The current arrangement works for me - I just deselect all targets for V&A before pasting.

[Pierre Louis B.]

SOLVED!!!!!! There's no more need to wait for Adobe to fix this anymore! There's a new plug-in that just came out that allows us to simultaneously set shortcuts to 3 different pasting behaviors:
1. Paste to lowest enabled track
2. Paste to highest enabled track
3. Paste to same track

This new plug-in doesn't just provide a solution to Pr's horrible pasting, but it also provides solutions to well over a dozen other common FRs. You can find out more about it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1638270639681590/permalink/1766467540195232

You're welcome! 😉

[mikep37103446]

Overcomplicated.

Id suggest paste ALWAYS pastes to track your cursor is currently over, doesnt need to be active or clicked just hover cursor where you want it pasted and paste.

[Alex Elkins]

@ Mike Parsons

I try to avoid touching the mouse so there's no way I want the position of the cursor to suddenly start affecting keyboard shortcuts.

[Pierre Louis B.]

@mike, what you suggest is an interesting idea, but it would have to be an on/off option. Not everyone would want it to work that way, myself and Alex Elkins included.

Btw, what's overly complicated about letting users set shortcuts for the pasting function(s) they want? 😉

[Wes23965832nckb]

Hello everyone!

We have made some recent enhancements to copy and paste behaviors in Premiere Pro Beta. New options are now provided for pasting items to the same track as requested in this thread.

This new feature is accessible in current beta builds of Premiere Pro. Creative cloud subscribers have access the beta versions if they’d like to check this out and provide feedback.

In past versions, when pasting items in a Timeline, Pr referenced the track targeting settings to determine where items were pasted.
Some users preferred this behavior while others expressed a preference to always paste items to the same (originating) track. We have assigned new default paste shortcuts that will change the default behavior to always paste to the same track.

We have recently introduced 4 new Timeline panel specific keyboard shortcuts.

Paste to Same Track
Once assigned, this new keyboard shortcut will always paste items in the Sequence to the Same Track the item was copied from.
 
Paste Insert to Same Track
Similar to Paste to Same Track, this Keyboard shortcut can be used to perform a ripple (insert) paste operation.
 
Paste to Target Track
This new K/S provides the same behavior os legacy copy and paste operations. The Paste to Target Track command will paste according to the lowest targeted track(s).
 
Paste Insert to Target Track.
This new K/S can be used to create an additional keyboard shortcut that provides the same behavior os legacy copy and paste insert operations. The Paste Insert to Target Track command will perform a ripple paste (insert) operation according to the lowest targeted track(s).
 
Note: All four of these functions can be assigned to keyboard shortcuts providing the ability to paste to the same track or according to track targeting.  These shortcuts override the legacy application wide default copy paste keyboard shortcuts when the Timeline Panel is active and can be accessed from the

We are looking forward to getting some feedback and working towards getting this feature into a new release of Premiere Pro soon!

Wes

[Pierre Louis B.]

Hi Wes, that's great news. Thank you for working on this. But why only provide a half solution? Why not also provide the options to paste and insert paste on the highest enabled video track? This is something that has been requested a long time ago, and it is functionality that's provided by the outstanding Excalibur plugin. It's nice to see this issue finally recieve some attention but it's disappointing to hear that it's only a half solution when a full solution, such as what Excalibur provides, could have just a well been implemented. Please consider providing a FULL solution. I use Excalibur myself, so I'm already benefiting from the full copy pasting solution it offers, but for the sake of all your users who don't use Excalibur, it would be a lot more beneficial to have a full copy pasting solution offered, especially given the fact that pasting to a higher track is often much more desirable than posting to the lowest enabled track for the simple reason that higher tracks naturally contain less media and therefore have more empty space to paste into without overwriting media.

[Wes Howell]

Hi Pierre,

We are happy to consider continued enhancements to this feature. In the meantime, we're hopeful that the new functionality will provide new and useful options for users that may not expect or prefer the older track targeting behaviors.

Here is link to our public beta forum if you'd like to join the discussion and continue to provide feedback on this or other related features.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-beta-discussions/discuss-paste-to-same-track/td-p/128677...

Thank you for all of your feedback and ideas.

Wes

[Pierre Louis B.]

Hi Wes,

Just wanted to quickly follow up with the following observation:

Since most of the footage on my Timeline occupies V1 and V2, using the new Paste to same track option is of little to no help whatsoever when I copy media from those tracks and I want to paste media to a higher track to avoid overwriting media that's already on V1 or V2.

To avoid overwriting media by accident, the best option is always to paste to the highest enable video track (and enable a higher track that always remains clear of any media). As I mentioned before, I'm not advocating for this feature for myself since I already have it with the Excalibur plugin. I'm advocating for this feature for all of the users that don't use Excalibur.

Has anyone on the Pr team even tried Excalibur? I suggest you and your team try out the paste to highest track feature in Excalibur to see just how useful it is. I suspect no one on the Pr team tried it out yet, and that's why you decided to continue to leave out a feature that would be so beneficial to your users.