Good one, thanks. Putting the base zoom on the track instead of each clip is a much faster starting point, I hadn’t framed it that way.

One thing to watch if anyone tries it: a track effect hits everything on that track, so keep footage that’s already vertical (phone clips, screen recordings cropped for mobile) on a separate track or it gets zoomed too. Same if you mix cameras with different resolutions: grouping each camera on its own track lets each track carry its own base zoom, and the per-clip transform stays small.

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.

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.