Groups

The row is the container

Group a set of layers and the group becomes a clip on its own timeline lane, spanning exactly the time its members occupy. Open it and its rows appear nested underneath its bar, in the same timeline, at the same zoom — not a separate panel or a drilled-in view.

Because a group is a clip, it carries everything a clip already has: its own transform, paint, effects, opacity, blend mode, feather and in/out animations, on top of whatever its members carry individually.

Trim to show or hide

Trimming a group’s edges shows and hides what’s inside — it never retimes a member. Shrink the group and its members are simply not shown past the new edge; nothing about their own timing changes, so you can always trim back out to reveal them again.

Drag in, drag out

Drop any clip onto a group and it joins, free of charge. Drag a member and it stays inside the group’s band as you move it — dragging it past the group’s edge lifts it out onto its own row, unless you hold the drag-out key, which pulls it free immediately. Groups nest inside groups, and combine with anything else on the timeline the same way.

Stroke and silhouette follow “now”

A group’s outline traces what’s actually showing at the current time — a member that hasn’t started yet, or has already ended, is left out of it. Adjustment layers have no silhouette of their own, so they never contribute a phantom box to a group they sit inside.

Groups vs. composite groups

A plain group is organizational — it holds and times its members without changing how they render together. Turn on a composite blend mode — union, subtract, intersect, exclude or mask — and the same group starts compositing its members into one unit. Switching modes never re-wraps your layers, because it’s a mode on the group you already have, not a different kind of container.