The user interface is split up into three panels: source monitor, program monitor and timeline. There are two types of assets: clips and sequences. Clips are the source material you will edit and assemble into a sequence. The source monitor is used to view clips and mark in and out points in them for editing. The program monitor is used to view the sequence and edit clips into it. The timeline is used to get an oveview of the sequence and to edit clips into it.

Iola NLE support the most common keyboard shortcuts for editing.

Q     goto mark in
W     goto mark out

E     set mark in
R     set mark out
T     mark clip / cut

I     set mark in
O     set mark out

A     goto previous edit
S     goto next edit

D     clear mark in
F     clear mark out
G     clear mark in and out

J     play backward
K     stop
L     play forward

Z     lift
X     extract
V     insert
B     overwrite

Home  goto start
End   goto end

When you edit a sequence using lift edit, all sequence clips in all unlocked tracks are removed and is replaced with a black filler to fill the gap.

When you edit a sequence using extract edit, all sequence clips in all unlocked tracks are removed and the gap left by the removal is closed.

When you edit a clip into a sequence using insert edit, all sequence clips in all unlocked tracks are cut at the In point of your edit and pushed forward in the edited sequence by the duration of your source clip.

When you edit a clip into a sequence using overwrite edit, any portions of clips that are already in the destination tracks are replaced by the source clip.

Iola NLE use FFMPEG to read and write video files and is only limited by what FFMPEG can handle. But not all containers and video codecs are suitable for editing and video production.

• AVI Audio Video Interleave
• GFX General eXchange Format, SMPTE 360M
• MOV QuickTime
• MXF Material eXchange Format, SMPTE 377M

For editing:

• DNxHD lossy intraframe high-definition video compression
• HuffYUV lossless intraframe compression
• MJPEG lossy intraframe compression

For aquiring media:

• H.264 lossy interframe compression (eg. from DSLR)
• MPEG-2 lossy interframe compression (eg. from HDV)

To conform a sequence with another application it must be exported to an interchangable format.

• EDL (CMX 3600)
• FCP XML (Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format, version 5)
• ALE (Avid Log Exchange)