Quote Before submitting yet another suggestion to CL, a quick check in the forum to be sure that I don’t overlook anything:
There are two ways of inserting a project: nested and expanded. When the preferences are set to nested, a project loads into the timeline as one blob that can be "opened" by clicking on the name of the project above the timeline. Full details become available and one can edit the project. This is all very convenient. However, when the length of the sub project is changed during this editing, that change will not be apparent or imposed to the overall project when the overall project is again selected above the timeline.
When the "sub" project has been shortened, there will be a black "hole" on the timeline at the end of the inserted project. When the "sub" project has become larger, the new part will not be seen in the overall project, The length of the sub-project is fixed and everything beyond the original subproject length is simply not shown.
Or do I miss something?
When the expanded option is selected, any changes to the expanded project WILL have impact on the timeline and PD will ask whether to trim or insert with or without moving as expected. My expectation would be, hence my suggestion that PD recognizes any change made to a sub-project that has been inserted as nested, and at least asks whether trimming or insertion needs to take place.
Or have I overlooked something?

I don't think you've overlooked anything.

I simply don't see any real thought put into how to edit with the "Nested" inserts. What I see is potentially a good concept, poor incorporation. To me it appears more of a one time shot vs a true editing platform. Basically, edit all the pds pieces to completion, and then insert the "Nested" projects to build something larger with no real additional editing.

1) The pds project bar above the timeline is not "active", basically you can close those projects and not affect the timeline
2) if you copy a nested pds and paste again in timeline, to me all the attributes of this clone should always be maintained. If I modify the original, the clones should be modified too, instead they are just a static copy at that time.
3) basically, no real associativity built into any incorporated edits associated with the nest project via base project timeline edit or nested project edit

Jeff

Quote Before submitting yet another suggestion to CL, a quick check in the forum to be sure that I don’t overlook anything:
There are two ways of inserting a project: nested and expanded. When the preferences are set to nested, a project loads into the timeline as one blob that can be "opened" by clicking on the name of the project above the timeline. Full details become available and one can edit the project. This is all very convenient. However, when the length of the sub project is changed during this editing, that change will not be apparent or imposed to the overall project when the overall project is again selected above the timeline.
When the "sub" project has been shortened, there will be a black "hole" on the timeline at the end of the inserted project. When the "sub" project has become larger, the new part will not be seen in the overall project, The length of the sub-project is fixed and everything beyond the original subproject length is simply not shown.
Or do I miss something?

Hi,

Following the OP, I've been playing about. I'm not sure this is fully documented anywhere but there appears to be a mechanism to extend or shorten a nested project on the timeline.

Make a simple project, say a couple of sample clips, and save as NPSub1.

Start a new project.
Add a couple of sample clips to T1.
Insert the NPSub1 project between the sample clips.
Check all is OK.

Open the NPSub1 project from the projects tabline above the timeline
Add a red colorboard to the end of the sub project, this increases the duration of the sub project.

Open the main project with its tab.
The duration of NPSub1 is unchanged, whereas the actual duration is longer by the added CB duration. The added red CB does not display when scrubbed or played.

Select the NPSub1 “clip” on the timeline.
Grab the rt hand boundary and extend the duration of the NPSub1. For this example, extend it well beyond the red CB actual duration.
Note the timeline preview progress bar changes to red/blue when you grab the boundary and drag it beyond the actual duration of NPSub1.

Grab the boundary again and shorten the duration of NPSub1 slowly
Note the red/blue progress bar stays red/blue until the content of NPSub1 is reached, at that point the progress bar changes to all red and behaves as “normal”, so when the red bar extends to fill the preview play timeline, the subproject is at an end. The appropriate Overwrite, Trim and Move etc selection can then be made.

To be more exact the T1 timeline may have to be expanded appropriately.

Of course, if the added duration of red CB in NPSub1 is known, then the NPSub1 boundary can be extended by that amount, using the red progress bar, rather than guessing and extending too far then shortening back again.

In summary, it is possible to manually extend or shorten a nested project by dragging the rt hand boundary of the nested project “clip” on the timeline using the preview red progress bar as a guide.

Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator

Thanks very much, moderator for playing with this and to showing a way to get around the poor implementation of nested projects. I think that the feature of nested projects is very good and works well for reproduction of a series of projects that need to go in different order or in different collections.
The point I was trying to make was/is that it would be (even) better if PD would recognize changes in a subproject with respect to the length and adjust the main project with the appropriate questions like trimming and overwriting.
You video and explanation show that somehow PD recognizes the length of a subproject and shows a blue line when the subproject ends.
I beg to differ. Please check whether the lengths of the color board and the image in your video have the same length. I think that they have or have almost. Please also try to change the length of the image behind the subproject. What I see is that the blue line appears precisely at the end of the clip or image after the subproject. Then indeed asks the question trimming or insertion etc. and if you let it insert and move, the length of the subproject is adjusted but to the original end of the image or clip, not to the end of the subproject.
See my screen recording attached. The image is longer so the blue line appears at the end of the image, leaving the black “hole” behind the last color board of sub project 1
I thing you have discovered a bug of a wrong implementation of the feature.
I have filed a bug report: CS002424252