How do i reposition the timeline to the left margin?

Question

I dip into FCP Pro X when I have a new project to edit - in between doing other things.  The interface reminds me of the dash on my old Merc A160.  It has very few buttons and they have multiple functions, but to change the time on the clock I always have to consult the manual.  Less is not always more - something Apple struggle to understand sometimes.  If I was using FCP all the time (heaven would be not having several different jobs) I would probably figure it out - but, because there is nothing intuitive about the interface, I have to relearn how to use it every time I come back to it.  Just like the buttons on my Merc.  I have completed a couple of editing projects in FCP.  But I haven't looked at it for some months.  In between I have been using Resolve (because a lot of my footage is shot in Log mode - something FCP doesn't handle at all - and I have to use a LUT to make the clips usable in the editing process).
I have a wedding to edit.  Three cameras, three audio tracks on the cameras plus the church PA audio and a Roderick recording from a mic work by the groom.  I would like to choose an audio track and sync the video to that - but I learned last time that is not possible (or not easy).
I looked at multicam sync clips but I can't see how I can use this to fit my workflow - it requires too many decisions up front and I don't have small clips - I have two 1hr "clips" and some smaller ones from the handheld camera.  I don't want to chop up the "master" clip and I can't see how to easily sync everything together in such a way that I can see it all.   Yes I see that I can choose different angles in a different editor, but I don't want to get into that at this stage - I just want to see all my material in a timeline so I can make major edit decisions first.  Oh I wish I had not thrown out FCP 10...
So what I want to do this morning is just drop clips into the timeline from the main camera, chop it up and remove the bits of the ceremony that I don't want in the final video and then choose clips from the other cameras to replace the main camera. 
So, I drop a clip in the timeline.  Its the warmup to the wedding.  People are sitting down.  The organ is playing.  I don't want this in this timelines.  So I trim the clip from left to where I want it to start.  Great.  Except...
... the timeline now starts halfway across the display and I have a blank black box to the left.  I cannot, for the life of me, see how to move the start of the clip back to the left margin.  Nor can I imagine why anyone at Apple thinks this is a useful thing to do?
In between all of this I have the usual Yosemite instability issues and, for whatever reason, Preview keeps crashing so using the FCP User Guide is more or less impossible.
Any clues?
And don't say use Resolve on Windows instead.  I don't need much persuasion, and I hate Windows.

Answer 1

I don't agree with you here.  Resolve is much easier to use - I don't have to try and get into the heads of the developers and its is easy to see how my material slots into the editor.
I am still trying to get my head around the way FCP organises the material.  Events/Projects?  What are they thinking here?  How does this fit into a wedding video?  I can create meaningful "events" (wedding/photoshoot/reception) etc but why would I?.  Is a "project" just a timeline - a "sequence" in normal film editors?  Why not call it that then?  I cannot figure out what kind of environment Apple were imagining when they came up with this way of organising things?  They must have had some kind of job in mind where events and projects make sense.  The manual is silent on where the clips actually go - are they organised within events?  within projects"  or within both?  Whatever it is, it might be easier to understand what FCP is doing if Apple explained what this structure means and why they have adopted it.  I am left to guess.
What I can't seem to get rid of is the groups (I have no idea what else to call them) which are just a date and under which my clips appear.  I don't want this hierarchy but I can't see how to get rid of it...   Clips that should be together, but were filmed on different dates, are in different places - and I cannot see how to group them together without these dates imposing another level of hierarchy,  I struggled through the last couple of videos not really understanding where my clips were and ended up with multiple copies all over the place.  Right now I don't know if I have all my footage in the library or not - its so hard to construct a meaningful organisation in this crazy interface.  I just deleted 8 copies of a lapel mic audio track - I have no idea how I got 8 copies of that into this library.  Does FCP just import duplicates without warning?  Its so hard to correlate what is in the library with my folder structure on disk...
To my mind, this is one project - a wedding video.  And this video will include multiple sequences.  But my clips need to be ordered in such a away that makes sense to me - I am not sure how to do that in FCP, but its easy in file manager.  The clips were shot in various locations on multiple occasions.  But this has nothing to do with the finished product, which will have its own order of things, not necessarily related to the order of shooting.  In FCP (or Resolve) I would have the clips in bins and my various sequences which I could then assemble.   Now I guess these are projects?  They aren't "projects" at all - at least to in my mind.  I don't like having to think about this project (the wedding video) in some weird way which only makes sense to the FCP developers.  Maybe they never filmed a wedding!
Thanks for the advice re multicam clips.  I came to the same conclusion  but there is an awful lot of stuff to synchronise and I am not confident that FCP will do this in one go.  But now I have to learn and get familiar with the different editing environment for multicam clips.  Oh joy!  I am hoping I can add more clips to a multicam clip afterwards - once I sort out how to get my footage into some meaningful structure without all these surplus dates...  The clips have been imported so that the file structure creates keywords - which would be ok, perhaps, except for this extra date-related hierarchy which means I have to keep expanding the tabs to see the clips.
As for Synchronised clips, if you read the user guide there is nothing to warn you that this is an audio-only sync.  Or which video track you are going to end up with. "For example, if you select two video clips and three audio clips from different sources that were all recorded during the same take, Final Cut Pro automatically analyzes and syncs the clips together into a new clip in the Browser."  Perhaps, when they wrote this manual, they were thinking this would create a multicam clip.  Or maybe its an old manual - I don't suppose they get updated automatically.  Maybe I better go look to see if there is a newer version on Apple's website.
I seem to spend a lot of my time undoing the default settings in FCP.  I don't want my footage disappearing into an impenetrable amorphous mass in some hidden library somewhere, so I have to remember to change that default - the wording in the inspector is not very clear and sometimes I find that it is importing the material into its library and creating another copy.  I generally only notice when my backup software suddenly starts copying gigabytes of data to tape...
I don't want to see my footage an in iMovie layout with no tracks either.  Especially my audio tracks, so I always have to unpack them.  I miss the little buttons to turn off different audio tracks - yes I know there is another way to do this, but its not obvious (as with everything else in this software) and means fumbling around in the interface to find how to do it - and its slower if you want to flip between audio tracks to decide which one to use at any given point.  Its the same with synchronising clips.  You expect to select the clip, right click and get a sync option.  But its in a separate menu under Clip.  Why?  If you want to copy a clip to another library its not under a clip menu - but under the file menu?  Why?  I think its a terrible mess - and I think that Apple introduced a level of complexity to this interface with little to show for it.  I am new to Resolve.  It looks complicated with all its colour wheels and stuff, but actually its very intuitive and easy to use.  And its very easy to structure clips and sequences without having to spend hours trying to figure out how Apple think you should do things.  if you use FCP all the time then fine - you get used to it.  But is it truly a better way to work?   I like structure - it helps me to understand my material - but FCP is anti-structure and forces a virtual schema on its users.  If you like that, well and good - but it shouldn't be compulsory.
I got my head around using keywords - but I hate it - its just extra work for me and I hate the loss of the direct relationship with my material.  Its very hard to see whether I have used all the material or not and how it all fits together.  Now I have duplicated stuff everywhere and lots of things missing - but no real organisation.  And I have to remember how I keyworded clips to find them - not easy in a big project.  And since I have lots of big clips I have to remember not to change the I/O points without first saving the subclip and assigning a keyword.  Extra work and easy to stuff up.  Its a problem too if you edit a subclass without realising it is just a virtual clip so every instance will be edited.  Sometimes thats a good thing, but not always.  The issue is that this happens invisibly so you have to be very careful working with these virtual clips.  Subclips are safer - you always know whats happening - and that's increasingly difficult when you have lots of subclips which are really the same material but grouped separately.
Its much the same with all Apple's software today - its all written from some other planet.  I have had to take out a subscription to Office 365, use Dropbox and oneDrive instead if iCloud and download Resolve to deal with my Blackmagic camera.  Its a consumer world at Apple now - and an iMovie view of the world.  Apple like to hide half the functionality because they think it makes things look easy.  Their manuals are useless and their online Help worse.
And yes, thanks for the Shift-Z.  That works, though finding it in the manual is another matter.  But why this behaviour in the first place?  Is there any reason why you would want your timeline to start halfway across the screen?  Why doesn't the clip just snap back to the left as it would in any other editor?  Its little quirks like this that make this a very frustrating experience.  I am not editing all the time - I am just as likely to be in Dreamweaver, Indesign, Illustrator or Photoshop - or working on business projects.  I don't feel I should have to wade through a badly written user guide or ask basic questions in this forum every time I come back to FCP Pro X - that was never the case with the old FCP.  Its just like the clock on my car - daylight saving happens here twice every year and the time has to be changed.  I always need to refer to the manual.  To my mind that is a crap user interface.
FCP Pro X has some nice new features.  But its hard to justify this when everything else is so hard to use.  Its like connected tracks.  Why is that an improvement?  I always start with an audio track from my master camera - because its on tape and runs for the whole take - but its impossible (or very difficult) to do this in FCP Pro X.  If I have a jumble of clips and its not clear where they fit, I can't assemble them, in sequence on a separate track - I have to connect them, arbitrarily, to an existing track.  And then undo that connection later.  I have to rethink my workflow every time to try and fit in with FCP Pro X.
In an earlier life I was a software developer.  The golden rule of applications in business was that you built your application to suit the workflow of the user.  You could streamline it, but not change the sequence unless the business had made a decision to do that already.  I wrote quite a few large applications for various areas of the business - I used them to make sure they worked, and I used the existing workflow.  A user could come back from holidays and know immediately how to use the app to do their job.  A new user could use the app without weeks of training.  Its not hard to write intuitive software - but its impossible if you set out to impose a new workflow or method of organisation on a user.
Apple seem to have missed this altogether.  FCP will always be a dog, for that reason alone.  I have never used Avid or Premiere Pro, but I imagine no-one else has adopted Apple's upside-down way of doing things.  That spells lots of training issues for anyone adopting FCP Pro X.  And now since you have to work with  colour grading apps, like Resolve, users have to work backwards for Apple and forwards for everyone else, in the same project.
After this project I am going to look seriously at Premiere Pro - but only if I decide I can't use Resolve on its own for everything.  I have been an Apple diehard for 12 years after being a Windows guru for a decade before that.  I am close to giving up on Apple.  Having to buy Office was very difficult - but the Apple apps have been dumbed down (Pages) or were never up to the mark (Numbers).  I can't use iCloud because it doesn't support half my material so I have Microsoft oneDrive which also goes against the grain.  And I am running Yosemite which means crashes at regular intervals and reboots several times a day.
I am an Apple shareholder too.  But I beginning to think they have lost the plot.  I hope not.