Going back to keyboard discussions for today’s Quicktip I always remap the H key on most NLEs (that’d be FCPX and Adobe Premiere Pro) that are tool based as the H is the HAND tool. I’ve never found myself using the Hand tool very often and it seems a shame to have a key so close to JKL scrubbing that I don’t use.

I think the most common use of the Hand tool would be to drag around the timeline view to see different parts when zoomed in. That’s a fine use but if you use an Apple Mighty Mouse (or just Apple Mouse as they call it) that has the little scroll ball built into it then this scroll ball can perform the same function of moving the timeline around that the Hand tool does. And it can do this without a click and drag in the timeline and it can do this while the timeline is playing back.

Plus all of these zoomed interface elements have scroll bars on the side. So remap that somewhat useless Hand tool away from the H key and put something much more useful on there.

Learn to love the little ball on the Apple Mouse. It’s very useful in an NLE.