Re-Order the Timelines

Is there a way to order the timelines within Resolve (Edit page above 2nd viewer) so they are in order of number and not the order in which I created them?

I asked few times...

we need alphaBloodyBetical order in all lists (looking at the matte menu as well)

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https://twitter.com/hurkman/status/753026965817348097

Agreed that lists should default to alphabetical organization, but that Hurkman fix is worse than useless on complex projects.

Projects with lots of timelines invariably demand a timeline organizing principle more extensive than the alphabet or a single bin. Defeating that organization so you can get an alphabetical listing on the drop-down is a shot to the foot. Or both feet.

The traditional way, with timelines listed only in the media page/browser, but which remain current in tabs once opened, still seems to be the best approach. That drop-down menu wouldn't be necessary, if multiple timeiines could be kept open and accessible, without having to go look for them every time.

Thanks guys for the help.

The current way the list works is almost unusable for the project I'm working on.

The current way the list works is almost unusable for the project I'm working on.

I think the answer here is that you have to change your working philosophy in order to adapt to the software, rather than trying to force the software to work according to your philosophy.

My method is to break a project down to multiple session files, each with a limited number of timelines. Even with very, very complicated jobs, I can't recall ever going over (say) 40 timelines. And even then, I would bet not even 10 of them wind up in the final.

As sessions get approved and finalized, I generally will create a new project called FINAL (or something like it), and even break that apart to FINAL TEXTLESS or FINAL HD or FINAL 4K. This works for me, but I concede there's lots of ways to tackle it. None of them would require having dozens of timelines in a single project.

The three reasons I try to avoid lots and lots of timelines in one project:

1) it's clumsy to find where they are and which is the one I really need (particularly when many changes are happening)

2) the computer slows down quite a bit when you load in lots of media and lots of timelines, particularly with complex node structures (at least on my hardware)

3) logistically, I can jump around a lot faster to one session with 6 or 7 current timelines than to have to juggle 20 or 25 timelines. To me, it's all about speed and avoiding confusion.

Having said all that: I totally agree that I would prefer for the timelines to auto-sort in Alphabetical order and not in Creation order. At worst, make it a pref or make the timelines sortable in the Timeline window.

I'd like to see it go a step further then just a alphabetical sort. What about folders, or bins - so Timelines relating to a particular section of the work can be grouped together or all of the interview TL's can be grouped together etc.

would help to keep the drop-down list shorter and tidier

Jeff, if you enable use of the Timelines bin you can do pretty much just that.


Marc, I have to say that while an alphabetical listing would be a nice option, I **really** like having the list in creation order. That lets me know the last few timelines I was working on. And there are times when I need that info.

And I do very much appreciate you sharing your approach, and ***a lot*** of times they are ***very*** informative and useful. But reading your post carefully, I don't think I made it clear that those are editing timelines; there is no grading on them. They are essentially pointers to media files.

The project is a documentary about a volunteer organization with a 25 year history and 15 chapters. Each chapter gets at least one timeline. And then there are certain combined elements like titles with backgrounds and maps with labels that each get their own timeline so they can be easily recut into multiple locations of the program.

And there is the periodic saving off of versions of each timeline, so you can easily see how the number skyrockets. Through out one day, I may save off old versions of a timeline ten times. In five days, that means fifty timelines.

Almost everyone working on this project comes from a Media Composer background, so I'm not in a position to tell them to reorganize their editing workflow. (One person comes from Premiere and its timeline management features are the most flexible of all the NLE's.)

Be carefull with using the innocent looking timeline bin.
It disables the posibility to switch your project into colaboration mode in the future. Found out the hard way. Its hidden in the manual but far from obvious.

It must be really hidden, lol. I just did a search in the manual on Timelines Bin and didn't see anything about this.

It falls into the category changing project framerate, which only after the fact you find out , you start bashing in your head.
My way out was exporting all timelines as an xml and importing in anoter project without that damned timeline bin. Then i could enable colaboration. It was only edited and not graded so not that bad, but it did raise my bloodpressure.

[quote="PeterMoretti"]Jeff, if you enable use of the Timelines bin you can do pretty much just that.


Thanks Peter. Yeah, works ok for the edit side of things but once into the color tab you are still left with a very long list of individual TL's with no sorting ability. I'd like that to include the bins so I can easily go to "interviews" then "person C" or whatever.

Currently editing and grading a doco with 26 interviews, shot by 4 different production companies, a vast array of B Roll etc etc. At the end there will be the doco plus a bunch of stand alone pieces of many of the interviews, hence grading those on seperate TL's - and hence the PITA of the drop down TL menu in color tab still just showing an unsorted long list of TL's

And while I'm not planning on using the colaboration mode for the moment, the idea that TL bin locks that out is a concern.

I am the first to admit though that my workflow could do with a good amount of tweaking so no doubt I could make it all a bit easier on myself.

The project is a documentary about a volunteer organization with a 25 year history and 15 chapters. Each chapter gets at least one timeline. And then there are certain combined elements like titles with backgrounds and maps with labels that each get their own timeline so they can be easily recut into multiple locations of the program.

Editing is a whole different thing, but the slowdown with multiple complex timelines is still a very real problem.

Two additional things that might help you:

1) Dynamic Project Switching would allow you to keep multiple projects open temporarily and just "park" timelines there when necessary.

2) You can always Nest timelines for a final output, or when you need to render or view multiple timelines together.

If it were me editing (say) a feature, I would just have one entire scene per timeline in the initial cutting, and gradually build up reels so that I could figure out the transitions between scenes. A lot of this boils down to organizational methods, so it's more a philosophical thing than a feature thing per se.

There's very little that's harder to cut than a really involved documentary with hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage. That's a tough challenge for any editing system, and there are pros and cons for everything out there.

[Peter Chamberlain]

Timeline list sorting aside.. seems like a lot of these could be made as compound clips as they are not really timelines, nor even reels. This is a different workflow for some i know but worth considering.

Hey,
A word to say I totally agree with Marc's way of working : I also try not to have dozens of timelines in one project, but preferably several projects (like pre.final, before.sfx etc etc). It allows (imho) to jump quicker from one TL to another and prevents from exporting extra huge DRPs at the end of the day (+ if you have a problem, it's only on one part).
Therefore I think it's also a sort of careful behavior to me...
But yes, it also forces to super use dynamic project switching some times, and alphabetical order should be everywhere anyway, philosophically speaking...

I decided to switch a project with multiple timelines to timelines with compound clips. It made my list easier to use and worked fine except I now seem get quite a few crashes when I go into the compound clip and start doing roller trims on some clips. It does not always happen and seems to happen more on a compound clip with about 5 tracks rather than 1 or 2. It does not happen if I nest the timelines.

I am using Resolve 14.1 Studio on a Windows 10 PC

Peter, the project you saw in my machine, has a trailer with 27 languages, each with a different card, each language has two version of the card and two sub category: almost 120 timelines.

At least allow the folder structure and alphabetical order to be there.

The current way the list works is almost unusable for the project I'm working on.

I think the answer here is that you have to change your working philosophy in order to adapt to the software, rather than trying to force the software to work according to your philosophy.

Great saying!

Peter, the project you saw in my machine, has a trailer with 27 languages, each with a different card, each language has two version of the card and two sub category: almost 120 timelines.

Gaaaaaaaa!

I agree that dropdown list sorting needs to be more flexible.
My workaround is to use the keyboard shortcuts to switch between the Edit & Colour pages, with a bin of timelines in the edit page which I can order the way I need. I actually think it is quicker than using a drop-down list when the number of timelines becomes unwieldy.

[Peter Chamberlain]

Peter, the project you saw in my machine, has a trailer with 27 languages, each with a different card, each language has two version of the card and two sub category: almost 120 timelines.

At least allow the folder structure and alphabetical order to be there.

Understood
Thks

This bothered me too today, and this seems like the foremost thread on the Color page's drop-down function.

So compared to 2017 I may be talking from the future, but at least as of v15, I realized I can just ignore that menu altogether:

Use the top-left pane to open the Media Pool (instead of the Gallery which I usually keep open), navigate to my (manually created) timelines bin, and just open timelines that way.
Then you have the full organizational capabilities of the bins and can sort things to your heart's content.

This bothered me too today, and this seems like the foremost thread on the Color page's drop-down function.

So compared to 2017 I may be talking from the future, but at least as of v15, I realized I can just ignore that menu altogether:

Use the top-left pane to open the Media Pool (instead of the Gallery which I usually keep open), navigate to my (manually created) timelines bin, and just open timelines that way.
Then you have the full organizational capabilities of the bins and can sort things to your heart's content.

Can u do that in the export page?

You can right click a bin and select "Open As New Window", then you can use that window on the Delivery page as well. However, it's not suitable for using on a single GUI monitor since the new window doesn't stay on top of the main window. I wish there was a setting for that.