Text window mods to help with dialogue assembly

[FPS_Fish]

I’m sure a lot of editors like using text editing by cutting and pasting text to manipulate dialogue in a timeline. That’s cool, but not my workflow. 

Instead, I use the text window to build dialogue edits from a paper edit - which typically involves multiple interviews and multiple clips with multiple cameras. So I prefer to build it sequentially, selecting from one source to a fresh timeline. IThe Text window very good for this (better than searching the old way with time codes on a paper printout that get you in the general area) … but the window needs some slight modifications to make it great.

Larger text window to search: When you’re building from a paper edit, to accurately find the right section requires at least three or more words for an accurate result. But the tiny window makes it very awkward to do this and modify a result. Cannot fathom why this window is so small when the interface has so much space there.

Keyboard navigation: It would be great to be able to use arrow, home, end, up & down keys to jump between search results. Especially helpful to get to the top of a large number of results which is surprisingly difficult to do if you’ve started your search anywhere but the start.

Lock the text source: When building a dialogue edit, you end up grabbing pieces from another timeline which has multiple clips and moving it to your new sequence. But when you move the clip the text window feels compelled to resort and show you all the text in your build sequence. Don’t need that. And any manipulation of that clip in the build sequence can freak the text window out and make your timeline jump wildly to different points in your timeline. This results in confusion & frustration. You can uncheck “follow” but that just limits the view to source or sequences - not a specific sequence. It would be great to have a way to lock the text window to your source monitor and/or to a specific sequence. That way when you click the text window you always know where you are selecting from.

Color coding speakers: It would be great to color code the speakers so it’s much easier to see who’s dialogue you are reading and selecting from.

Select with IN & OUT alone: right now when selecting from another sequence you have to create a splice at your IN and a splice at your OUT and then select that clip (or clips) and drag it/them to another timeline. Instead it would be great to have a button (like the Linked selection or Snap in timeline buttons) where your IN&OUT select everything in active tracks of the sequence  and when you choose COPY you can then simply paste it into another timeline. Fast, clean, simple. Saves so many clicks and steps. I think this would be helpful in general, not just dialogue editing.

Collaborative transcription editing: It would be great to have a way to send a link to another person to proof & correct the transcription (in a browser window perhaps?) which could update the results of the transcription and, as a bonus, help train Adobe’s transcription AI.

Thanks for listening!

[Stan Jones]

@FPS_Fish,

Upvoted. Very thoughtful ideas.

Larger text window to search:

You're talking about the small box for entering search terms? There is a lot of space left. The Text-based Editing Workspace handles the size of the Text panel itself.

Keyboard navigation:

There are a lot of shortcuts in the Text panel. And they are active when there is search active. But none help with your issues; I like your suggestions.

Lock the text source:

There are 2 issues here, both of which cause problems. You identify one that has been much discussed. Part of it was considered a bug, and I think fixed. That is related to the problem that the timeline jumps to a search location when you don't want it to.

The second issue, which I had not considered, is that, while you can turn off "follow active monitor," that just means you can stay with a source transcript or sequence, but not which sequence. I'd try opening the source sequence in the Source Monitor, or perhaps pancake editing.

Color coding speakers:

There is a lot still to be done with Speakers....

Select with IN & OUT alone:

I'm not sure what you mean. If you select in the transcript the in/out feature selects the in/out in the sequence, and includes everything that is targeted. Copy, switch to the target sequence, and paste. So I think I am missing your point.

Collaborative transcription editing:

I haven't tried to sort frame.io since the problems with V4.

@Annika Koenig Who's the right team for these suggestions?

Stan

[FPS_Fish]

Thanks for the upvote:

I'm posting a couple of images to clarify the requests.

I will say that I only just recently understood the ability to use the NEW Search window to find words/phrases in transcripts. That would likely change my process to using the source window to mark In & Out and add to a sequence and the text search will span multiple clips therefore making the need to create sequences to edit from less necessary.

I have not tried it, but does Search get you in the ballpark? Does it try and find the exact text match or perhaps, if your selection is a bit off, does it find the closest match? because at times minor format issues can cause grief when searching. A rogue extra space, a missing ellipsis denoting an “ahh” or “umm”, or otehr typos will caus ethe search in text window to say “Zero results"

[FPS_Fish]

As for my “Select with IN & OUT” request, let me try and clarify.

There are hundreds of tutorials online for how to copy a clip in the timeline and properly paste it into the same or another timeline. But if you mark an N & OUT in a sequence and choose COPY nothing happens unless the clips in the timeline are selected. Ok. Fine. However, you end up getting the entire clips, not just withing the IN & OUT region. I propose a button in the timeline that when active would mean that any copying would presume clips within the selected region. This would save any number of CUT or SLICE  steps. Those would be unnecessary as the region between in & out, combine with active tracks or selected clips, would define this. 

[MyerPj]

Upvoted. Seems like some good suggestions.