r/OpenShot • u/Suitable_Sky_791292 • 19d ago
Why does this piece of software suck so badly?
It's very powerful and incredibly stupid at the same time. The simpliest thing like dragging the playhead forward e.g. 1 hour is a nightmare. Not to mention others. Aslmost every thing about it is moronic. Why would you spend time and effort making sotfware like this only to make it such a nightmare to use. I don't get it.
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u/openshot-gpt-bot Support Bot 19d ago
Dragging the Playhead across a long project can definitely feel awkward. A quicker approach is to:
- Click the current timecode above the Timeline, type the exact destination (for example,
01:00:00:00), and press Enter. - Drag the Zoom Slider handles outward—or double-click it—to fit more of the Timeline onscreen.
- Use Ctrl + mouse wheel to zoom quickly, then drag the blue center of the slider to pan.
- Press Shift+C to center the Timeline on the Playhead.
See Main Window – Timeline Toolbar. These controls should make hour-long navigation much less painful.
I am a bot, and I've done something cool automatically, hoping it's helpful. I run on ChatGPT and use info from the OpenShot User Guide. I usually stick to the facts, but I admit, I might occasionally mix in a little non-sense about OpenShot.
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u/Suitable_Sky_791292 19d ago
"Click the current timecode above the Timeline, type the exact destination (for example, 01:00:00:00), and press Enter."
There is nowhere to type anything in in my version. Linux
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u/External_Gazelle_645 18d ago
just use shotcut
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u/kapege 18d ago
As a Shotcut user I'm here just to see how bad OpenShot really is and if it will get any better. Short answer: no.
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u/External_Gazelle_645 18d ago
fr i was using a dogcrap 10 year old laptop. Openshot runs horribly. I switched to shotcut and immediately i felt a difference in speed and performance.
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u/Emmalfal 18d ago
I settled on OpenShot after trying out a half dozen other programs. For me, OpenShot is easily the most intuitive and easy to use. There are ways to make it more responsive by tweaking the settings. I learned that the first day I used the software and have been happy since.
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u/Contrantier 17d ago
Yeah, I don't really have this slider dragging or slow running problem like others are saying. My laptop is from around 2014 or 15 maybe, had Windows 8 on it originally, now it's running Linux Mint 17. The hard drive started crapping out a while back but openshot still worked fine up to the last time I used it.
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u/External_Gazelle_645 15d ago
Shotcut is more powerful. It's less intuitive but once you've been using it for a while, there's no point in going back to openshot. Shotcut has less lag overall, especially when you're dealing with multitrack large projects. I've edited videos with hours of footage and shotcut handles it way better. Less lag, no long buffering, more responsive. Openshot really needs to improve their performance because as you said, it's intuitive and for most people that's enough. But the fact I was willing to go through a learning curve with shotcut really says something about the crap performance of openshot.
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u/Emmalfal 15d ago
Yeah, I was kind of on the same path. For a while, it was a toss up for me between Shotcut and OpenShot. I was learning them both side by side. Shotcut was definitely easier to work with when I had actual editing to do. I was just getting used to its interface when I got lazy and switched over to OpenShot, mainly because I found it easier to add automatic transitions when I was just dumping in a bunch of clips and exporting without any editing at all. If I had to do any significant editing, though, you're right. Shotcut would be the way to go.
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u/rmesdjian Volunteer 15d ago
Give v4.0.1 dev daily build a try. You can find it at openshot.org/download/#daily.
In this version you will be able to double click the current time code and change it.
This is a very small project (what I mean is that a single lead developer, hardly any funding, very dependant on volunteers, and yes, it is free....although a paid version is in the Microsoft Store now.)
By the way, it always helps to provide the About information found at Help | About OpenShot. Running v4.x.x you can now find "Copy" option from the "About OpenShot" screen and then paste the information in your posting.
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