GENERAL
A Timeline is made up of Slots. A Slot can hold one or more shots - stacked up vertically. Only the bottom shot is included in the timeline playback - all other shots in a Slot are considered versions. The length of a Slot within a timeline defaults to the length of the bottom shot but can be set independent. All transitions in a timeline between one shot to the next are Slot properties.
The number of Slots as well as the number of clips within as Slot can quickly amount to a number that will not fit on a single screen. The following Quick Keys are available for navigating the timeline / slots:
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• Quick Key: Drag horizontal
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» Pan across the Construct horizontally
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• Quick Key: Drag vertically inside a slot
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» Pan across the Slot vertically
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• Quick Key: Right Arrow
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» Reveal one slot to the right in the Construct
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• Quick Key: Left Arrow
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» Reveal one slot to the left in the Construct
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When in panning mode, the cursor will change to 
. Alternatively to the quick keys to navigate the Timeline is the scrollbar below the slots. To the left and right of that scrollbar are the buttons to quick jump to the First or Last slot of the timeline. The controls to the far left and right of the scrollbar display the Current Slot (index) and the Total Slot count respectively. The control for the current slot is a numeric control of which the value can be adjusted directly.
Note that a Slot is only scrollable vertically when the number of shots that are stacked up in the slot exceed the available space. Scrolling a slot vertically will continue with the bottom shot following the top shot again. There is however a gap between the last and first to indicate the current 'timeline'-shot.
SLOT INFORMATION AREA
Below each Slot in the Construct is the Slot Information Area. This area is used to display a variety of information about the Slot and/or the current Timeline Shot within that slot.
- The Slot Information Area highlights (blue) to indicate which slot is currently selected.
- The light-grey-bar below the current Slot indicates the actual length of the clip in the slot in relation to the length set for that slot.
- Each Slot has an icon at the bottom. This icon indicates whether a slot is enabled or not and whether the duration is set manually.
- By default the start timecode of the slot in the timeline is displayed. However you can adjust this to display e.g. Slot-name, Slot-index number, Slot-length in frames or a combination of these, from the User Preferences dialog which you can open with the gear-icon button on the bottom part of the screen.
SELECTING SLOTS
The active slot is highlighted by the blue bar at the bottom. You can however select multiple slots for copying, disabling or removing. To make a selection you use the Control and / or Shift key. Select the first slot by clicking in the Slot Information Area as you would do normally to select a slot. Hold down the Quick Key: Shift and click in the Slot Information Area of another slot. All slots between the selected slot and the slot you shift-clicked on are selected (or de-selected when it was selected in the first place). You can also hold down the Quick Key: Control and click in the Slot Information Area at the bottom of the slot. This will toggle the selection state of the slot. To clear a selection, click on any slot outside the information area.
INSERT, DISABLE, REMOVE, RENAME, COPY SLOTS
A mouse right click or Quick Key: ` or ~ anywhere in the Viewport of the Construct opens the command menu.
INSERT SLOT
The slot is inserted before the slot under the current position of the mouse / menu.
DELETE SHOT
SCRATCH asks for confirmation to delete the slot under the current position of the mouse / menu. This function will only delete one slot at a time, even if more than one slot is selected. To delete multiple slots at once you need to use the Delete Selection option in the lower right corner of the menu.
RENAME SLOT
Slots can have a label / tag. The Rename Slot option allows you to enter the name of a slot. If a slot is named, that name is always displayed in the information area at the bottom of the slot - no matter the User Preference selection.
EN/DISABLE SLOT
Slots can be disabled, which means that on Playback of the timeline, SCRATCH will skip those slots - even though they will remain visible in the timeline. The Disable / Enable Slot is applied to all current selected slots.
COPY, DELETE SLOT SELECTION
When you have selected one or more Slots, you can copy or remove them with the corresponding buttons in the right of the Construct menu.
The Copy Selection button will copy all selected Slots into the copy buffer. The Delete Selection button will remove the selected Slots permanently. Both buttons only work on Slots that are selected, not on the active slot (highlighted with the blue information bar at the bottom). The Paste option will insert the slots in the copy buffer before the current slot.
AUTO/MAN ICONS
Each Slot has an icon at the bottom showing whether the duration of the slot is being determined automatically (AUTO) by the length of the bottom shot in the slot or that it was set manually (MAN) - either through a conform from an Edit List or by the user in the Editor.
By default, a slot adapts its duration to the length of the clip that is placed in it. When this is the case, the slot shows the AUTO icon.If the current clip is replaced by a clip of a different duration, the slot adapts to the new duration automatically.
When a Dissolve is used in the transition from one slot to the next a green transition mark is added to the slot icon. As previously described, when a slot is disabled, the slot icon is shown in red.