Changelog

v0.2.6

March 2026

Paste Insert (Ctrl+Shift+V) — inserts clipboard at the playhead with ripple, splitting any clip at the insert point and shifting downstream clips right
Copy/Cut/Paste restored — Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V work as expected (they are universal OS shortcuts and do not appear in the shortcut editor)
Rubber band lines (opacity/volume) are no longer interactive when the “Show Opacity and Volume Lines” toggle is off
Project panel drop snapping now includes markers in addition to clip edges and playhead
GPL compliance: added full GPL v2 license text and links to build configuration in Open Source dialog

v0.2.5

March 2026

Nudge clips — Alt+Arrow moves selected clips 1 frame; Alt+Shift+Arrow moves 10 frames. No ripple.
Text layer editing — double-click a text layer to edit its content without leaving Railcut
Keyboard shortcuts search — filter the shortcut editor by command name or description
After Effects shortcut preset — full AE keyboard layout added as a built-in preset
Zoom toward cursor — Alt+Scroll on the timeline canvas zooms centered on the mouse position. Alt+Scroll on the track header sidebar resizes track height.
Compact ruler — the time ruler is thinner, reclaiming vertical space
Timecode in toolbar — the current time display moved from the track header sidebar to the toolbar
Zoom slider removed — zoom via keyboard shortcuts (=, -) or Alt+Scroll
Add Edit mode preference — Settings → Preferences → Add Edit Mode: choose between “Track targeting” (default) or “Selection / all tracks”
Add Edit targeting fix — for A/V clips, Ctrl+K now checks video track targeting only (audio targeting no longer affects the cut)
Configurable cache limits — Settings → Cache now includes max size dropdowns for waveform cache (default 2 GB) and thumbnail cache (default 512 MB)
AE layer sync (one-way) — Railcut no longer syncs its selection back to AE when you click clips. AE → Railcut sync (clicking a layer in AE highlights it in Railcut) still works.
Project panel snapping — footage dropped from the Project Panel snaps to clip edges, playhead, and markers
Various playback and CTI sync improvements

v0.2.4

March 2026

Butted clip stability — fixed a floating-point rounding issue that caused clips at adjacent edit points to jump to separate tracks when footage FPS didn’t match the comp FPS
Track layout stability — track assignments now recover when layer timing is changed directly in AE (retime, trim, etc.)
Fresh layer placement — adding a new layer in AE no longer displaces existing clips in Railcut
Per-layer overwrite — group drag operations now apply overwrite rules per-clip rather than across all destination tracks
Frame-rate-aware adjacent clip detection
Error logging added to license, waveform, and CEP critical paths

v0.2.3

March 2026

New toolbar icons — every tool now has a custom-designed icon built from scratch
Show Opacity and Volume Lines toggle in the wrench menu — hide rubber band lines for a cleaner view
Show Video Tracks / Show Audio Tracks toggles in the wrench menu — collapse either section to give more space to the other
Gap selection on all tools — click a gap to select it regardless of which tool is active
Duplicate layer placement — layers duplicated in AE land on the next available track above the original

v0.2.2

March 2026

CTI scrubbing — drag the playhead to scrub through the comp in real time
Razor snaps — the Razor tool snaps to the CTI, clip edges, and markers for precise cuts
All tools select clips — any tool can click a clip to select it, not just the Selection tool
Multi-file OS drag — drag multiple files from Finder or Explorer into the timeline at once
Duplicate layer placement — layers duplicated in AE land on the next available track above the original
Show Opacity and Volume Lines toggle in the wrench menu — hide rubber band lines for a cleaner view
Show Video Tracks / Show Audio Tracks toggles in the wrench menu — collapse either section to give more space to the other
Custom toolbar icons across all tools

v0.2.1 (post-v0.2.0 updates)

These features shipped after the v0.2.0 release and are included in the current build.

New Comp from Footage — drag footage onto the empty Railcut panel to create a new composition automatically
Animated playhead during RAM Preview — the playhead moves in real time during playback
Estimate Playhead Position During Playback toggle in Settings for smoother playhead on slower machines
Thumbnails expanded — per-clip frame thumbnails now support still images (PNG, JPEG, PSD, etc.) in addition to video
Auto-regenerate thumbnails when clip in-points change
Settings → Cache tab — renamed from Waveforms; now controls both waveforms and thumbnails
Trackpad horizontal scroll on the timeline
Scroll to playhead on Home/End keyboard shortcut
Stop AE playback when grabbing the Railcut playhead
AE theme changes now update panel colors live
Stability and reliability improvements across 47 audit findings

v0.2.0

February 2026

Drag-and-drop from Project Panel

Drag footage items from the AE Project Panel directly onto the timeline
Drop position determines clip placement (time and track)
Hold Ctrl during drop for insert mode (shifts downstream clips)
Ghost clip preview shows where the clip will land before you release
Supports clips with linked video and audio (A/V items)

Track patching

Video and audio patch buttons in track headers control where dropped A/V clips land
Set a video patch to a specific track, an audio patch to another, and each component lands where you expect
Discard video or audio by leaving the corresponding patch inactive

Q/W ripple trim shortcuts

W — Ripple Trim Next Edit: trims nearest out point to playhead and closes gap
Q — Ripple Trim Previous Edit: trims nearest in point to playhead and closes gap
Alt+W / Ctrl+Alt+W — Trim Next Edit without ripple
Alt+Q / Ctrl+Alt+Q — Trim Previous Edit without ripple
Locked tracks are skipped by ripple trim operations

Audio waveforms

Real amplitude waveforms extracted from source audio via ffmpeg
Supports audio-only formats (WAV, MP3, AIFF, AAC, FLAC, OGG, M4A) and video containers
Disk cache — waveforms generate once and load instantly on subsequent opens
“Generating Audio Waveforms” toast during extraction

Insert edit mode

Drag-and-drop with Ctrl held uses insert mode (downstream clips shift right)
Visual insert bar shows the insertion point during drag

Selection Follows Playhead

Toggle in the toolbar: when on, clips touching the playhead auto-select when you stop
Useful for quickly acting on whatever clip the playhead is over

Keyboard shortcuts improvements

Built-in presets: Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro
Fully customizable — click any shortcut to reassign it
Save custom named presets
Mac note: Ctrl shortcuts use the Ctrl key (^), not ⌘ Command

What’s New dialog

Bell icon in toolbar with badge for unseen updates
Accordion list of release notes pulled from railcut.com

Other additions

Edit On-the-Fly — Ctrl+K during RAM Preview places a cut at the live playback position
Mark Clip (X) — sets work area to clips touching the playhead
Ripple Delete — right-click a gap → close it with a ripple
Fit to Frame — right-click a clip → scales to fill the comp
Speed/Duration dialog — right-click a clip → enter exact speed % or duration
Rename clip — right-click a clip → Rename…
Lock/Unlock — right-click a clip → toggle layer lock
Select Label Group — right-click a clip → select all clips with the same label color
Sync clip selection to AE layer selection — selecting in Railcut selects in AE and vice versa
Tabbed Settings panel
Privacy notice and About dialog
Feedback button in wrench menu

v0.1.0

Initial beta release

Multi-track timeline for After Effects with video tracks above, audio tracks below
Full editing tool palette: Selection, Track Select (Forward/Backward), Ripple, Rolling, Blade, Slip, Slide, Rate Stretch, Pen, Zoom, Hand
Drag clips on the timeline to move them (overwrite mode)
Keyboard shortcuts with Premiere defaults
Add Edit (Ctrl+K) — split clips at playhead
Ripple Delete — remove clips and close gap
Delete (lift) — remove clips and leave gap
Lift and Extract — work area range operations
Mark In/Out (I/O) — set work area
Go to In/Out (Shift+I / Shift+O) — jump to work area boundaries
Next/Previous Edit Point navigation (↓/↑)
Label colors — color-code clips to match AE labels
Track header controls: visibility (video), mute/solo (audio), lock, rename
Per-track height resizing
Snapping — clips, playhead, and markers snap to edit points
Composition markers — add, drag, and snap to markers
Pen tool — edit audio levels and opacity with keyframes directly on the timeline
Zoom controls (=, -, )
RAM Preview via Space; J/K/L passed to After Effects
Copy/Paste (Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V) with playhead-relative paste
Undo/Redo (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z)
AE theme detection — panel colors match your AE dark/light theme
License activation and deactivation