Drag from Project Panel

You can drag footage items directly from the After Effects Project Panel onto the Railcut timeline. This is the primary way to add new clips to your composition.

Basic drag-and-drop

1. In the AE Project Panel, select a footage item or composition
2. Drag it onto the Railcut timeline
3. Drop it at the position and track where you want it

The clip lands at the time position where you release. Horizontal position = time. Vertical position = which track it lands on.

Tip

Snap is active during drag. The clip snaps to the playhead, adjacent clip edges, markers, and track boundaries. This makes it easy to drop clips precisely at exact cut points.

Overlay vs. Insert mode

By default, dropping a clip uses overlay mode — the clip overwrites any existing content at the drop position on the target track.

Hold Ctrl (Windows/Mac) while dropping to use insert mode — the clip is inserted at the drop position and all downstream clips shift right to make room.

Track patching — controlling where A/V lands

When a clip has both video and audio (like an .mp4), Railcut needs to know which video track and which audio track to place each component on. That’s controlled by the patch system.

Video patch

In each video track header, you’ll see a small patch button (labeled V1, V2, etc. when active). Click it to “patch” the video source to that track. When you drop a clip, the video component lands on whichever track has the active video patch.

Audio patch

In each audio track header, the patch button is labeled A1, A2, etc. when active. The audio component of a dropped clip lands on the track with the active audio patch.

Default behavior (no patch active)

If no patches are active, Railcut uses a sensible default: the clip’s video goes to the video track closest to where you dropped, and the audio mirrors it (same track number).

Discarding video or audio

If only the video patch is active (no audio patch), only the video component is placed. The audio is discarded. Useful when you want to drop footage visuals on a track but don’t want its audio.

If only the audio patch is active (no video patch), only the audio component is placed. Video is discarded. Useful for dropping audio-only onto a specific audio track.

Drag onto an empty panel

If Railcut has no active composition loaded (the panel shows “drag footage here to create a new timeline”), you can drag a footage item from the Project Panel onto the empty panel. Railcut will:

1. Create a new After Effects composition sized to match the footage
2. Add the footage as the first layer
3. Open the new comp in the Railcut timeline

This is the fastest way to start a new edit from scratch.

Note

Only footage items with video can be used to create a new comp from drag. If you drop a folder, precomp, or audio-only item onto the empty panel, Railcut will show an error asking you to select a footage item with video.

Supported item types

Item type	Supported?	Notes
Footage (video)	Yes	Full A/V support
Footage (audio-only)	Yes	Lands on audio track only
Footage (still image)	Yes	Lands on video track, no audio
Composition (precomp)	Yes	Treated as video source
Folder	No	Can’t drop folders
Camera layer	No	No video/audio output
Light layer	No	No video/audio output
Null object	No	No video/audio output

What happens in After Effects

When you drop a clip onto the timeline, Railcut calls the AE scripting API to insert the item as a layer at the specified time position. The layer appears in both the Railcut timeline and AE’s native Layer panel. From there, you can select it, keyframe it, or apply effects in AE as normal.