Copy and Paste

In Scene Composition (SC) mode, all on stage objects can be cut, copied and pasted from and to within the same scene or across different scenes. Much like in Timeline Editing (TE) mode, these productivity commands are carried out through a right-mouse-click contextual menu. They can be performed on both the selection of a single object or the selection of multiple objects.

Object Contextual Menu

To incite the Compose contextual menu, depending on the task you are to perform, you may right-mouse-click either on the selected object(s) or anywhere on the Compose stage. A drop-down menu opens at the click of your mouse with 5 rollover button commands: Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste In and Remove. Except Paste In, all these same commands can be delivered by keyboard shortcuts as well.

Cut object(s)

Use Cut button in contextual menu or keyboard shortcut Ctrl + X (Command + X for Mac) to cut a selection out of current scene into memory. This cutout copy includes all variables currently pertained to the selected object(s): size, position, color, text, and duration (the space between in-n-out marks) etc. The Cut out object(s) will disappear from the stage (onto the clipboard in memory).

Copy object(s)

Use Copy button in contextual menu or keyboard shortcut Ctrl + C (Command + C for Mac) to copy a selection into memory. This includes all variables currently pertained to the selected object(s): size, position, color, text, and duration etc.

Paste object(s)

Use Paste button in contextual menu or keyboard shortcut Ctrl + V (Command + V for Mac) to paste a selection from memory to a desired spot within the same scene or of a different scene. The pasted copy includes all variables pertained to the copied object(s): size, position, color, text, duration and etc. If the "frame-space" (the time space between the current frame and the last frame of the scene) to be pasted in is shorter than the memory copy, the original selection will be truncated to accommodate the pasted-in "space". Otherwise the pasted copy will occupy the same duration as the original selection started from the pasted-in frame counting forward.

For pasting in the same scene: move the frame slider to a desired frame and right-mouse-click on a desired spot. For pasting to a different scene: select a new scene from Timeline and find the frame you want the paste to start, then right-mouse-click where you want the paste to happen. Note that the pasted object(s) appears at the mouse click when using contextual Paste button. But the pasted object(s) defaults at the center stage when using keyboard shortcut Ctrl + V (Command + V for Mac).

Tip: On a multiple objects paste, the pasted items stay selected after the completion of the command. Don't deselect them before you are certain that there is no object being out of stage in the selection. This is when you still have a chance to move the out-of-staged object back in view. Once deselected, you may not be able to access it again.

Paste In object(s)

While sharing identical characteristic of a paste, the Paste In button differs from Paste button in that its pasted-in position is exactly the same as of its copied selection. That is: when using Paste In to do paste, regardless the whereabouts of your mouse click, the pasted copy will always appear at the same exact position as that of the original. This command is handy when you want to transfer a bunch of objects from one scene to another preserving exactly the same composition of the original.

Remove object(s)

Remove button is working just like the "Delete" control on object's bounding box or the "Delete" key on your keyboard for removal of selected object(s). However it comes in handy when you want to remove a bunch of objects from the stage. It's right there after your object selection and at your fingertips, so why not?

Note: when there's no object being selected and no clipboard copy in the memory, the object contextual menu cannot be called up. Also, depending on circumstances, certain commands may not be available (dimmed out) at the time of your mouse click. For instance, when there's no copy in the memory the "Paste" and "Paste In" buttons are unavailable. And on the other hand, when there's no object being selected on stage but a copy is in the memory, the menu will open with only "Paste" and "Paste In" buttons present ("Cut", "Copy" and "Remove" buttons are dimmed out since there's no selection to be cut, copied or removed).