I ask for a track lock button since a long time.
Please Sony, consider to add this basic feature.

hear, here, to rosebud's plea....

Yes -this would be handy. I may be overlooking something, but I think everything's there except the button in the Track Header - all the button has to do is execute a script which selects all events in that track and lock them.

A brilliant idea! I vote for it !!! Anyone else??? You should send this to SCS an product suggestion - immediately.

Please SCS, add a LOCK button to the track control, there is room beside the other buttons (solo, mute, automation...).

This would be a NICE feature, especially when splitting just one or two tracks, leaving the others un-split. Now I have to shift-click the two clips (on two tracks) that I want to split, to prevent ALL tracks to split at the marker... this IS tedious. If a LOCK button would exist, it should also lock the track from any editing, like splits.

This would improve the already great Vegas even further. Anything that makes the use easier is a merit.

Christian

EDIT: Obviously, the track lock function must not change the individual clip lock status of those clips that are on the track...

Amen,
Premiere had it from the outset. Couldn't believe such a feature was missing when I first started using V4 and we still do not have that basic editing functionality.

While we're at it a Razor would be nice too. The current Split tool feels like you're playing Russian Roulette.

Bob.

Hi Bob,

Can you please explain the analogy ?? On the contrary, I feel like playing with a heavy artillery gun, it's too easy to "penetrate" all your layers at once... ;)

Not being an Premiere expert, how does actually the razor differ from the split function - assuming we are not doing this in the trimmer, but on the timeline? What are we "Vegans" missing ?

Christian

Not sure what you're after here Bob - I've always preferred the S button to having to first select a razor tool, splitting, then unselecting it afterwards, as Premiere used to need.

Selecting an event or events means only selected events are split, and selecting no events means that all events at cursor positon are split. Total control!

I'm not suggesting really one is better than the other, choice is always a good thing.
Aside from that though, having a tool that only splits one track, no matter what you have selected seems to me a very usefull addition. Mightn't seem a big issue if you've only got a few tracks but start getting lots of them where you can't see all at once and where you may or may not have events at that point on the T/L and you create a certain amount of uncertainty as to just how much you just split.
The consequences of splitting a track you didn't mean to are not necessarily immediately obvious either.

Another thought. Instead of adding yet another icon to the track header to lock the track why not use two existing ones. Why not just lock muted tracks. Why not lock all tracks but the soloed track. OK, maybe there's some obscure reason why not but then lets have that as an option "Lock all muted track". Seems logical to me. You mute tracks because you're not interesting in what they're doing, logically you don't want to change them either.
Then we wouldn't need the Razor tool. Just solo a track and the "S" works the same as the razor, I think.

Bob.

Nice idea, but you'd want to be able to switch it off. I see it being all too common that one might solo a track to find a specific section that needs to be removed, but need to remove that section from all tracks to retain sync. It would be too easy to forget to un-solo before doing the delete. Then all the other tracks end up being wrong because they were locked.

Hi,

Bob's idea is nice, However, especially with audio, I would prefer to have a separate lock button. With video I could live with the fact that a muted track is also "muted" from all editing... actually... that was initially how I thought it works...intuitively...but it doesn't.

To be consequent, audio and video tracks should have the same locking mechanism, therefore I vote for a separate lock button on each track. You might have some video overlays (texts etc.) that you want to be visible when splitting underlying tracks, so the separate lock buttong would work in a very flexible way. ADDITIONALLY there could be a global switch, as there is for grouping, where you could select "IGNORE INDIVIDUAL TRACK LOCKING"...

To get the most suitable video editing suite for yourself, you should probably write it yourself... but since we cannot we kindly ask SCS to add the elegance we need :)

Someone with enough influence should make the feature request, if not already filed!

I am constantly struggling to remember to select the clip I want to split on the track I am editing - this tool would be mostly welcome!!! It would be impossible to lock all the clips individually on all the other tracks as a suggested workaround, especially if some of the ARE fixed, and should STAY fixed later when unlocking the other clips.

Splitting video clips (by accident) has normally no influence on the final outcome, but splitting audio clips produces (as default) a fast fade out fade in sequence that you will definitively hear.

Christian

Here's a script I wrote that will lock all events on all selected tracks. Assign it to a button or toolbar icon and I think you'll have what you want. If you want the script to unlock all events on all selected tracks, just change "true" to "false" in the one line:

evnt.Locked = true;

You would also probably want to change the MessageBox text as well.

/** 

* PURPOSE OF THIS SCRIPT:

*

* Lock all events on selected track.

*

* Copyright © John Meyer 2008

* Written: May 12, 2008

*

**/ 



import System; 

import System.IO; 

import System.Windows.Forms; 

import Sony.Vegas; 





try {



  //Go through the list of Tracks

  var trackEnum = new Enumerator(Vegas.Project.Tracks);

  while (!trackEnum.atEnd()) {

    var track : Track = Track(trackEnum.item());

    if (track.Selected) {



      //Go through the list of Events

      var eventEnum = new Enumerator(track.Events);



      while (!eventEnum.atEnd()) {

        var evnt : TrackEvent = TrackEvent(eventEnum.item());

        evnt.Locked = true;

        eventEnum.moveNext();



      }  // End While eventEnum

    } // End if track selected

    trackEnum.moveNext();

  }  // End While trackEnum

  MessageBox.Show("Events on selected tracks are all locked.","Completed",MessageBoxButtons.OK,MessageBoxIcon.Information);



} catch (e) {

    MessageBox.Show(e);

}

John

Thanks for the useful script, just what the doctor ordered! One question: how could I get this to toggle the lock/unlock state of the selected tracks based on, say, the first clip?

One question: how could I get this to toggle the lock/unlock state of the selected tracks based on, say, the first clip?

Try this one:

Script to lock events based on first event

Thx John,
However, locking a track is not to only prevent to edit events.
Locking a track should prevent to delete track, change track motion or fx, compositing mode…etc
In addition, some events can be locked in track. Locking and unlocking this track should retain previous event lock status.

So a script can’t really replace a “track lock button”.
Vegas still needing this feature.

Here's a link to a better version of the script, based on suggestions from J Schultz. This one toggles the lock state: if the first event on the first selected track is locked, then all events on all selected tracks are un-locked (or vice versa):

Script which toggles the lock state