Add Tab

1. Add tab
2. Delete tab - if there is only one tab left, it will remove the panel
3. Search tab by name

You can also middle click a tab to close it. A highlight shows which tab is about to close.

Relocate Tab

Drag on the tab name to relocate tab

1. Split panel and put the new panel before the target panel
2. Append tab in the target panel
3. Split panel and put the new panel after the target panel
4. Insert panel before the target panel
5. Insert panel after the target panel

Import Media

There are 4 ways to import media, it could be a video file, an audio file or an image

• Drag from file explorer / Finder and release it in the media panel
• Drag a single file from file explorer / Finder straight onto the timeline. Blick imports it and places the clip where you drop it in one step
• Title bar > File > Import Media
• Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+I

Media is usable the moment it lands. Video plays and scrubs without waiting for an index, see Instant playback under Playhead.

Add Clip to timeline

Import clip by dragging from a media panel to the timeline

1. If the media contains multiple video/audio streams, and you only want to add a specific stream to the timeline, you can drag the stream. The streams can be opened by clicking the triangle in the beginning of the media file.
2. Drag the media item from the media panel
3. Drag the media item to the timeline, it will show a preview of where the clip will be placed
4. Release the drag to place the clip in the timeline

The Media Table

Media is listed as a table with Name, Duration, Status, Type, Date Modified, and Path columns. Status tells you whether a file is Ready, still Loading, Not Found on disk, or being removed. The table behaves like a file browser:

• Click a column header to sort by it, click again to flip the direction. Sort several columns at once by clicking more headers, the first one you clicked takes priority
• Drag a header to reorder columns, drag the divider between headers to resize them
• Each column has a search field under its header. Type to filter the list to matching entries, combine fields to narrow down further, and use the clear button to reset all filters
• Click to select, right click drag to box select, Ctrl to add single files, Shift for a range, Ctrl+A for everything while the panel is focused

Blick does not analyze a file until you put it on the timeline. Importing a big batch is instant. Waveforms, Überblick strips, and frame indexes are built the first time a file gets used.

Fonts as Media

Font files are project media too. Import a .ttf, .otf, or .ttc by dropping it onto the Media panel, dragging it in from your file explorer, or hitting Import Font in a text clip's Text Content effect. Imported fonts sit in the Media panel alongside your video and audio, with collection files listing their faces underneath. They save with the project.

• Imported fonts appear in the font picker of every text clip alongside your system fonts
• Drag a font from the Media panel, or straight from your file explorer, onto the timeline to create a text clip in that font
• Select a font to see its file, face count, and face index in the Inspector panel
• Right click a font and choose Remove font to take it out of the project Context Menu

Context Menu

Right click on a media or media stream

Navigating the Timeline

The timeline runs on a small set of mouse rules that stay the same everywhere, plus hold-to-use modes for everything else.

Playhead

Select clips

1. Click to select a clip
2. Ctrl+C to copy the selected clip. Ctrl+V to paste the clip at the playhead. The playhead is moved to the end of the clip after pasting

• Select every clip with Ctrl+A, clear the selection with Esc
• Select every clip before or after the playhead on the selected track with Ctrl+Shift+LeftArrow/Ctrl+Shift+RightArrow. Add Alt to cover all tracks. Use it to shift everything downstream of an insert

Link clips

Link clips to select and move a group of clips at once. When you add a video file that contains an audio stream and video stream to the timeline, Blick will automatically link both the video and audio clips.

1. The link icon on the clips denotes that they are linked. When you select one of the linked clips, all clips in the linked group are highlighted.
2. Link/Unlink clip - Link selected clips together (Context Menu > Link clips) or unlink the clips, so the selected linked group is destroyed. (Context Menu > Unlink clips)

Move clips

Drag a clip to move it. Drag up or down to place it on another track, and drop it above the top track to create a new track for it. When several clips are selected, they move together and keep their relative positions.

Edit clips

Slip clips

Hold D and drag horizontally inside a clip to slide the source material under it. The clip keeps its position and duration on the timeline, only the part of the source you see changes. Slipping needs spare material beyond the clip bounds, so it only works on clips trimmed shorter than their source.

• Slip Mode — move clip inside its bounds D+Mouse

Rate Stretch

Hold R and drag the left or right edge of a clip to change its speed. Instead of trimming, the clip keeps all of its source material and plays it faster or slower to fit the new length: drag the edge outward and the clip slows down, drag it inward and it speeds up. Audio clips stretch too, with pitch preserved.

• Stretch Mode: change clip speed by dragging an edge R+Mouse
• Linked clips and multi-selections stretch together, keeping video and its audio in sync. Hold Alt to stretch one clip out of a linked group
• While dragging, the edge snaps to other clips and to the point where speed is exactly 1x
• Stretched clips are marked on the timeline. Right click a clip and choose Reset clip speed to return it to 1x Context Menu

Rate Stretch changes the clip and is baked into the render. To preview at another speed without touching your clips, use the shuttle controls.

Delete clips

Delete the selected clips by pressing Del or Backspace, or with Click on clip > Context Menu > Delete clip(s). Deleting a range selection removes just that span from the clips underneath it.

Scroll

The timeline scrolls and zooms with the mouse wheel plus modifier keys. The defaults are listed below, and you can swap which modifier does what in Title bar > Settings Menu > Keybindings > Timeline scroll wheel.

Clip transitions

Transitions blend a clip in or out over a set duration. Video, image, and text clips take Fade In and Fade Out, a linear opacity ramp. Audio clips take Ramp In and Ramp Out, a linear volume ramp.

• Add a transition: right click a clip and choose Add Fade In or Add Fade Out (Add Ramp In and Add Ramp Out on audio clips) Context Menu
• Remove a transition: right click the transition and choose Delete Transition Context Menu

Keyframe Editor

Keyframes change the value of an effect parameter over time. Place a few keyframes and Blick interpolates the value between them. The Keyframe Editor expands below a selected clip and shows one row for every keyframe-enabled channel of its effects, with a diamond for each keyframe.

Click the diamond to open.

1. Selected clip (has a highlighted border)
2. Open Keyframe Editor button

1. Close Keyframe Editor button
2. Effect name
3. Effect value controls
4. Previous keyframe
5. Next keyframe
6. Keyframe
7. Current selected keyframe
8. Selected clip boundary

Each row belongs to one channel that has keyframes enabled in the Effect panel, and only enabled channels appear here. The value controls on the left edit the channel at the playhead, exactly like the same controls in the Effect panel, and both stay in sync. The diamonds sit at their positions in time. Between two diamonds the value runs linearly, unless the earlier keyframe is a hold keyframe, in which case the value stays put until the next one. Before the first diamond and after the last one, the channel holds that keyframe's value.

Keyframe times are anchored to the clip. Move the clip and its keyframes travel with it. They can also sit outside the clip's current bounds, anywhere the clip could be extended into. Motion set up out there continues if you lengthen the clip later. The keyframe rows use the same navigation as the rest of the timeline: scroll and zoom work as usual, left click selects, right click drag box selects, and right click opens the keyframe context menu.

Create Text Clip

Hold T and click a video track to place a text clip there. You can also right click inside the Monitor panel and choose Add text clip.

• Text Mode — create text clip T+Mouse

Select the text clip and open the Effect panel to type your text and set its font, size, and color under Text Content. Everywhere else, text clips behave like any visual clip: trim them to any length, move them, and apply effects and keyframes.

New text clips inherit the font, size, and color of the last one you had selected, which keeps a set of titles consistent. While you hold T, a ghost of the clip in those settings follows your cursor over the timeline.

Keyframe Controls

Effects with a checkbox in front are keyframeable. Click to open keyframe controls.

1. Checkbox to enable keyframes on chosen effect
2. Checkbox to disable keyframes on chosen effect
3. Jump to previous keyframe
4. Keyframe at the current playhead: click to cycle linear / hold / off
5. Jump to next keyframe

Ticking the checkbox turns the parameter into an animated channel and reveals the keyframe controls next to it. The diamond cycles the keyframe at the playhead through three states: click once to insert a linear keyframe holding the current value, click again to turn it into a hold keyframe, click a third time to remove it. The diamond's look tells you which state you are in. The two arrows jump the playhead to the previous or next keyframe of that channel.

Channels that blend between values also get a smoothing knob. Turn it up to round off the corners of the curve. Values ease into and out of each keyframe instead of changing direction abruptly, and on hold keyframes a hard jump becomes a quick soft one. Smoothing sits on top of your keyframes and never changes their stored values.

While keyframes are enabled, the value field is driven by them: it shows the live interpolated value as the playhead moves, and editing the value writes a keyframe at the playhead automatically. You rarely need the diamond, just move the playhead and type or drag the value you want there. Before the first keyframe and after the last one, the channel holds that keyframe's value.

Unticking the checkbox pauses the animation and the parameter goes back to a plain static value. Your keyframes are kept and come back when you tick it again.

The Effect panel edits one point in time, the point under the playhead. To see and edit the whole animation laid out in time, open the Keyframe Editor in the Timeline panel. Both views work on the same channels and stay in sync.

Effect Target

Effects apply to the current selected clip in the timeline.

Default Visual Effects (Video / Image / Text Clips)

* = keyframeable

Additional Visual Effect List

Add these from the Add Effect button at the bottom of the Effect panel. Each effect can be added once per clip, and effects always run in a fixed pipeline order, shown by their order in the panel, no matter when you add them. Right click a parameter to reset it to its default value, middle click does the same on sliders. While dragging a value, hold Ctrl for finer control and Shift to snap to steps. Sliders cover the useful range of each parameter. Type or drag past the ends when you need more.

Color Space and Tone Mapping work together for camera log footage: Color Space tells Blick which curve and gamut the footage was recorded with so it can be converted into the project color space, and Tone Mapping compresses the extra highlight range down for standard output.

Audio Effects (Audio Clips)

Every audio clip carries an Intrinsics effect that cannot be removed. It holds the clip's volume and how its audio behaves when the clip is rate stretched.

Rendering and Rewinding

More controls appear when you click the render button.

While a render runs you can pause and resume the encoder or cancel it. The rest of the app stays usable while it encodes. The progress readout shows elapsed time and an estimate of the time left.

Rewind render — if you spot an error mid-render, move the playhead to the correct position, press "Rewind to playhead", and rendering continues from that point.

When the render finishes, the panel shows Open and Show in folder buttons for the exported file.

Actions

Media Players

Any Monitor panel can double as a media player. Drop a file onto it, from the Media panel or straight from your file explorer, and the panel stops showing the timeline and plays that file instead. Review footage before you cut it, or keep a reference open beside your edit. Open as many Monitor panels as you need. Each holds its own player.

A control bar appears along the bottom of the panel:

• Rewind to start, play/pause, and skip to end buttons
• The current time, a seek bar you can drag to scrub, and the total duration
• A mute toggle for this player
• A loop toggle: when playback reaches the end, either stop there or return to the start

The player shows the file as it is: its own frame rate and resolution instead of the project's, with the file's color space and rotation metadata applied. Drop a single stream from the Media panel, say one audio track of a multi-stream file, and only that stream plays. Player audio mixes into the output, and two players can run at once. Starting a player pauses the timeline, and starting the timeline pauses every player. Pause all monitor players silences the lot.

Close the player with the X on the panel's tab to get the timeline back. Players last for the session only and are not saved in the project.

Media Info

Clip Info

Editing keybindings (Windows only)

On Windows, Blick draws the menus itself. Every entry shows its keybinding, and clicking that keybinding edits it in place.

File Menu

Edit Menu

View Menu

Help Menu

Actions

Settings Menu

Keybindings

1. Keybindings for the 4 kinds of scroll in the Timeline Panel
2. Restore default scroll keybindings
3. Fuzzy search by action name
4. Search by keybind
5. Keybindings — map up to 2 keybindings (Primary / Secondary) per action

Every action in Blick can be rebound. Your changes are saved to blick.json in the local config folder: %LOCALAPPDATA%\blick on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/blick on macOS.

Command Palette

Manage License

Enter your license key here after purchase, keys start with "BLICK-". The panel shows your activation state and the end date of your update period, which runs for two years from the purchase date.

Your license activates every version of Blick released up to that end date, and those versions stay activated forever. Only versions released after the end date need a new license.

Say you buy a license on March 10, 2026. Your update period runs until March 10, 2028. Every version released before that day works with your key, today and years from now. A version from April 2028 will not take it. Keep using the last covered version as long as you like, or buy a new license for the newer one.

Without an active license you can try Blick freely, but opening saved projects is locked, and so are the extra color themes. The title bar shows an UNLICENSED badge in that state. Remove License clears the key from this installation.