I just learned about it and only do really light video editing. In theory it’s perfect for my use case.
I also love that it fits the gnome desktop so well but I can see its no longer really maintained? I use blender or shotcut for video editing currently but want something even simpler and that fits the desktop.
Any thoughts?
Since you already like Shotcut, two small GNOME-style apps can cover the light jobs, so you only open Shotcut when you need a real timeline:
- Video Trimmer (GNOME Circle): open a clip, drag the start and end, save. Very quick for trimming a single clip.
- Footage (Flathub): a little libadwaita app for trimming, cropping, rotating and converting one video.
Neither does multi-clip timelines, titles or transitions, so they sit next to Shotcut rather than replace it.
On Pitivi itself: it still installs from Flathub, but the last stable release was 2023.03 and development is very slow, so I wouldn’t build a routine around it.
And if Shotcut feels busy for quick edits, the presets under View > Layout (Player or Logging, for example) hide most of the panels and make it a lot calmer.
This is great! Didn’t know about footage but had played with video trimmer.
I tried pitivi for a couple days and just ran into to many crashes and so I think it isn’t a real option currently.
I think removing unnecessary panels in shotcut is pretty close to perfect. Enough for now definitely
Glad that helped! If the trimmed-down Shotcut layout works for you, save it with View > Layout > Add Custom Layout, so you can get back to it in one click whenever a panel gets reopened.
Two shortcuts also make light edits quicker: S splits the clip at the playhead, and I / O set the in and out points in the source player before you drop a clip on the timeline. With those, a quick trim and join barely needs the mouse.
Dude, you’re amazing. This is super helpful! Thank you!
Have you looked at kdenlive?
Yeah but it’s too much for my needs and doesn’t fit the gnome desktop very well.
So far shotcut is closest to what I’m looking for. But thanks for the suggestion!
Openshot? Did you check this site https://alternativeto.net/ for alternatives? If all you do is cutting videos, then maybe losslesscut would be good for you too.
I tried it and its very ugly to me, unfortunately. I’d rather just stick with shotcut at this point. I do more than cutting but I’m certainly not an advanced video editor so losslesscut wouldn’t work for me either.
