As Chienworks says here and in another thread, you need to learn about Auto Ripple.
The Help pages in v 13 are under Index > Auto Ripple button > Post-Edit Ripple.

I can't believe that split events can't be, shall we say, re-cemented. Isn't this a big oversight on the part of the designers. If split events can't be re-locked together, or merged into a harmonious track, there is forever the danger that individual events will get nudged out of alignment as one continues to do the editing and spurious gaps or overlaps will take place, worse still without one even realising.

I've looked into snapping, which again is poorly explained, and it appears to have made no improvement to my event abutting.

As for rippling, even the automatic variety (again poorly explained) I'm clicking on the appropriate icon, making my selection and still nothing seems to happen. What on earth is it meant to do?

Further to my previous comments, I currently have a gap right at the beginning of my timeline after doing some editing. I would assume I could remove this gap by dragging my abutted events to the left. But of course, since there are a number of splits, when I move the first event to the left, it detaches itself from the second split event and so on. So, to close the gap, I have to move every single split event separately to the left and then carefully re-abut them all. This is ludicrous!

Which version of Movie Studio are you working with? Earlier than v 13? If v 13, the basic version or Platinum, if Platinum, Simple Edit or Advanced Edit mode?

"I can't believe that split events can't be, shall we say, re-cemented."
This is so simple. Turn auto ripple off. Delete one of the split events, and click-drag the remaining one out to the same point. Takes all of two seconds.

To move everything on the timeline at once, I just press CTRL-A to select everything and then drag it to the new location. You don't need to move them all individually. If you "Group" them as Mike suggested, they'll all move together anyway (unless you have "ignore event grouping" turned on).

"and click-drag the remaining one out to the same point"

I believe Mike is asking about joining two parts that have had material removed in between them. He doesn't want the removed material to reappear.

If that's the case, render to a new track or leave 'em split are the only solutions I know of.
Putting the discontinuous events on separate tracks "might" reduce the visual annoyance, if that's the only issue.

The issue was keeping the parts together when moving them around on the timeline. Grouping and auto-ripple take care of that.

Hello all contributors and thanks for the various comments. First of all, I'm using platinum 11 version, should that affect any future responses.

My main concern is the movement of events along the timeline so that I don't get separations and blanks being introduced. I want to be able to move the whole series of events together and not separately, once I've sorted out the correct sequence. I believe 'snapping' ensures events line up properly, but it doesn't seem to hold events together when movement is taking place. Why would you not want snapping on all the time?

I'm afraid I still do not understand the concept of 'ripple' at all, auto or otherwise. What does the term actually mean and when does one use it? How do you know when auto ripple is in effect and when it is not - nothing seems to change? Again, why would you not want auto ripple on all the time?

Auto Ripple

Read more and about ripple types in online Help.