Radial menu editing: how the Momentum Dial speeds up your cut

A radial menu puts commands in a ring around your pointer, so every option is the same short distance away and you pick one by direction rather than by reading a list. For editing, that means fewer trips to a menu bar, fewer right-click lists to scan, and gestures your hand learns after a few days.

The Momentum Dial is cinemaOS's radial command wheel. You open it with a force-click or a press-and-hold, it shows the commands that fit whatever is under the pointer, and releasing commits the choice. This article explains why the design works, then walks through using and customizing it.

Why radial menus work: distance, size and direction

Two ideas from interface research explain most of it.

Fitts's law. The time to hit a target depends on how far away it is and how big it is. A menu bar is far from where you are working. A right-click list is close, but its items are thin strips stacked on top of each other, and the ones at the bottom are further away than the ones at the top. A radial menu fixes both: every slice starts at the pointer, and each slice is a wide wedge rather than a thin row.

Direction is easier to remember than position in a list. With a list, you read until you find the word. With a ring, you learn that Split is "up" and Ripple Delete is "down-left". After a while you stop looking at the wheel and just flick in the direction. Research on marking menus has shown this shift from reading to gesturing for decades, and anyone who has used one for a week knows the feeling.

There is a third benefit specific to editing: your eyes stay on the picture. Keyboard shortcuts give you the same thing, but there are only so many you can remember, and many editors work with one hand on a trackpad or mouse. The Dial is a middle path between memorized shortcuts and menus.

Opening the Dial and making a choice

The Dial opens in two ways:

• Force-click on a Force Touch trackpad.
• Press and hold with a mouse or a trackpad without Force Touch.

The wheel appears around the pointer. Move toward a slice and release to commit it. If you change your mind, drag away from the wheel to cancel. Once it is open, the arrow keys move between slices, Return commits and Esc closes it, which is useful when you want to look at the options before you choose.

If the Dial does not appear, check that it is switched on. The master switch, Momentum Dial command wheel, appears under Settings ▸ General ▸ Interface and also under Settings ▸ Momentum Dial ▸ Master. Settings opens with ⌘, and its search field finds either one.

One accessibility note: VoiceOver cannot open the Dial today. Every command it reaches also has a normal menu, shortcut or button, so nothing is locked behind the gesture.

What the Dial shows depends on where you are

The wheel adapts to what is under the pointer. These contexts are called surfaces, and you can see the full list in Settings ▸ Momentum Dial ▸ Surfaces: History, Value sliders, Bin clip, Timeline clip, Playhead · Ruler, Program · Source, Color, Shots and Photo looks.

The two you will use most while cutting:

On a timeline clip

Force-click a clip in the Sequencer timeline and you get Split, Duplicate, Nudge ▶, Nudge ◀ and Ripple Delete. These are the operations you do hundreds of times in a cut. Splitting under the pointer rather than at the playhead is especially handy when you are scrubbing with one hand and want to cut where you are looking.

On a bin clip

Force-click a clip in the bin and the wheel offers Insert, Overwrite, Replace, Audio Only and Finisher. This turns the classic three-point edit into one gesture: set your marks, open the wheel on the clip, flick toward Insert or Overwrite. Finisher sends the clip straight to the Finisher workspace when you want to grade or fix it before it goes in.

In the Finisher and Atelier

In the Finisher, while Grade ▸ Color is open, force-clicking the Program viewer brings up a color trackball with an exposure ring, so you can balance a shot without reaching for the sliders. In other Finisher studios the wheel becomes a shot jog. In Atelier's Photo room it offers eight one-tap looks on the photo.

Scrubbing undo history with ⌥

Hold ⌥ while you open the wheel and it becomes a history scrub: undo to the left, redo to the right. Instead of pressing ⌘Z eleven times and counting, you sweep back until the cut looks the way it did, then release.

This is most useful in two situations. When you are trying alternatives, such as three different lengths for a pause, you can sweep between them and judge by eye. And when something went wrong a few steps ago, you can find the exact point visually rather than guessing how many undos it takes.

The undo history in cinemaOS is 250 steps deep and is saved with the project, so the scrub works on edits from an earlier session too.

Customizing slices in Settings ▸ Momentum Dial

The default slices are a sensible start, but the Dial earns its place when it matches how you cut. Open Settings ▸ Momentum Dial. You will find:

• Surfaces, to see and edit what each context shows.
• The slice editor, to change which commands appear and where.
• Appearance and Wheel Feel, to tune how the wheel looks and responds.
• Dial mechanism clicks, an optional audible click as you move between slices.
• Export of your Dial setup, so you can keep it with your other settings or move it to your second Mac.

Some practical rules for a good layout:

1. Keep positions stable. If Split is at the top, leave it there. Muscle memory depends on it.
2. Put opposites opposite. Nudge forward on the right, nudge back on the left. Your hand already expects that.
3. Put destructive actions in awkward spots. Ripple Delete should not sit where an accidental flick lands.
4. Fewer slices is faster. Every extra wedge makes the others narrower and harder to hit, which is Fitts's law working against you.
5. Change one thing at a time. Use a layout for a week before rearranging it again.

Getting the habit to stick

For the first few days, deliberately use the Dial for one operation only, such as splitting clips. Once that is automatic, add Insert and Overwrite from the bin. Then add the ⌥ history scrub. Trying to change every habit at once usually ends with going back to the menus.

If you are moving from another editor, the Dial sits alongside your keyboard habits rather than replacing them. Keep the shortcuts you know and let the wheel cover the commands you never memorized. If you are weighing the move more broadly, cinemaOS vs Final Cut Pro looks at how the two apps approach speed differently, and the last five percent of an edit is about the small, repeated moves where a faster gesture adds up.

FAQ

Does the Momentum Dial work with a mouse?

Yes. Press and hold opens it with a mouse or with any trackpad. Force-click is an extra option on Force Touch trackpads.

Can I turn the Dial off?

Yes. The Momentum Dial command wheel master switch is under Settings ▸ General ▸ Interface and under Settings ▸ Momentum Dial. Every command remains available through menus and shortcuts.

Can I keep a copy of my Dial setup?

Settings ▸ Momentum Dial includes an export of your Dial setup, so you can keep a copy with your other settings and bring it to your second Mac. A cinemaOS account covers two Macs.

Try the Dial on a real cut

The quickest way to judge a radial menu is to cut one scene with it. cinemaOS has a 60-day free trial with no card required. Open a project, force-click a timeline clip, and split something.