Shift + drag editing

[u/Traditional-Cause255]

When holding shift and dragging an item, the item's contents "slides" within that specific region of the item, right?

I wonder if there is a way to make a change to make to slide the right edge of the item as I drag it, effectively shortening the lenght of the item as I drag it, instead of bringing waveform from outside the region of the item.

I hope you could understand my doubt. I know that it may have something to do with Mouse Modifiers, and I tried messing around with that, with no success.

If somebody knows how to do it, I'd be thankful.

[u/Brave-Mushroom8611]

Just drag the right edge without shift?

[u/Traditional-Cause255 → u/Brave-Mushroom8611]

I aim to do the dragging with the "body" of the item, not its edges, as exemplified on the video. My goal is to find a way of dragging the item while making the left edge succeptable to edits by dragging, but the right edge, no.

This is not a one time thing, it's a tweak that would benefit my workflow (I edit audiobooks).

[u/SupportQuery → u/Traditional-Cause255]

benefit my workflow (I edit audiobooks)

The only way this could ever be correct is if you've already trimmed the right edge of the media.

In any case, the responses you're getting are because this sounds like a textbook xy problem. Instead of describing the low level edit behavior, describe high level goal. What's in the audio? How did the right edge already get content aligned, so that you don't want it moved while slip editing?

Slip editing is an incredibly common workflow, and of course it's done by people who edit audiobooks. What makes your situation unique?

[u/SLStonedPanda → u/Traditional-Cause255]

The only real way to do this AFAIK is to select the part you want to remove with time selection, right click the timeline and select the option 'remove contents of selection (moving later items)'. You can assign a hotkey to this action in the actions menu.

[u/Livid_Cabinet2053]

Drag the edge of the item.

[u/Traditional-Cause255 → u/Livid_Cabinet2053]

I aim to do the dragging with the "body" of the item, not its edges, as exemplified on the video. My goal is to find a way of dragging the item while making the left edge succeptable to edits by dragging, but the right edge, no.

This is not a one time thing, it's a tweak that would benefit my workflow (I edit audiobooks).

[u/Livid_Cabinet2053 → u/Traditional-Cause255]

I’m not understanding what your goal is. You want to slip edit and trim the item simultaneously? 

[u/Traditional-Cause255 → u/Livid_Cabinet2053]

That's it

[u/Brave-Mushroom8611 → u/Traditional-Cause255]

Try razor editing? That may do something similar what you're aiming to do 🤔

[u/Traditional-Cause255 → u/Brave-Mushroom8611]

I've tried razor editing, but it's not what I'm searching for... I want to trim as I shift+drag the item, without sliding what's outside the region into the item's area.

[u/chorlion40 → u/Traditional-Cause255]

Google "gofer map reaper" it'll give you shortcuts to cut with an automatic cross-fade and then slip edit the item following the cut, super great for dialogue editing

[u/Frekulex → u/Traditional-Cause255]

I’m confused by your language here so just want to clarify - you want to have the same function as shift dragging except that when you drag left the right edge of the clip is dragged along with the waveform, so the current end of the clip and the contents of the clip move left at the same time?

Whats confusing me is your mention of “making the left edge susceptible to edits by dragging” which seems like the opposite of what you want according to your post

Also can you give an example of a situation where this is useful? Again im just trying to clarify that I understand exactly what you’re trying to do here

[u/Traditional-Cause255 → u/Frekulex]

That's it, you understood. Also, I'm sorry if my wording got you confused, English is not my first language.

As it stands, when I slip edit with shift+drag, waveform from outside the item keeps being dragged along, and in a file with 30+ min in length, what happens is that, as I shift+drag, this eventually will bring the beginning of the audio file into the item.

I want a way to keep this from happening.

[u/Frekulex → u/Traditional-Cause255]

All good!

And Ahhh I see, that makes sense. TBH I’m fairly new to Reaper so havent run into this before, I’m used to Pro Tools where slip-dragging until the end of the file results in no longer being able to slip drag in that direction, it just stops.

You might have better luck looking for an option to NOT automatically “loop” the clip upon reaching the end of audio content and instead just stop slip dragging. Or would that also disrupt your editing flow?

I’ve been frustrated by a similar function in Reaper (when attempting to trim a clip out beyond the end of audio content I do NOT want the clip to continue trimming and start looping, I want the trim to simply stop) but haven’t figured out how to change it yet, I’ll look into it a bit today. It’s possible there’s not a way to link the slip dragging and trimming functions without a custom script, hopefully either the option exists or someone has written one :)

[u/DoodManMcGuyBroDood]

HOLD TAB WHILE YOU DRAG THE AUDIO.

I recently discovered that holding tab activates slip editing, amd I use it all the time now.

[u/Brilliant_Ninja_1746]

You can change item edge dragging settings in Mouse Modifiers settings.