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Did older versions of Motion have additional widget features?

Hi


I'm in the process of updating some old motion projects. These were done about 10 years ago. Some of the templates have pop-up widgets with a separator. I'm not talking about creating separators for publishing to organise all the parameters, but in the actual widget.


The separator is baked in and is not an actual value on the widget. I attached a screen shot. As far as I know, there is no way to add this feature in the current version of Motion. It is not even possible to add underlined text to fake it. I could rename using just a blank 'space' but that still creates a selectable snap shot in the widget. If I save the widget to the library and import it, the separators remain, so Motion is still capable of displaying in 5.5.2


I'm wondering if anyone remembers this being a feature of Motion back in the earlier versions? The product manager can't recall how this was done at the time. Or maybe I am missing something? I couldn't find any information in the apple user guide about it.


Posted on Jun 21, 2021 10:01 PM

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Posted on Jun 22, 2021 2:45 AM

Hi Fox


There is definitely no plugin involved here. I attached a better image to show the pop-up widget in context. I've never seen a pop up widget with a separator before, so i was assuming it was an old feature, because these templates were made around 2011/2012. I'm in the process right now of updating them for 2021, with Fxplug for published parameter grouping./branding etc. I completely agree with you on the lack of disclosure groups for publishing. Sometimes we can end up with a parameters list a mile (or two) long in FCP - end users don't enjoy scrolling up and down to get to different features. I know we can make disclosure based published parameter UI in external tools, like FxCore from FxFactory for example, but as I understand it, and as you noted before, these are all external to Motion, and Motion is just the host. The UI be hosted by Motion and published through to FCP, but there is no interaction with Motion itself - we can't add any new publishing to the disclosure groups.


I need to migrate the template assets into new and improved templates, and realised I couldn't make the same style of pop-up widgets anymore.


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Jun 22, 2021 2:45 AM in response to fox_m

Hi Fox


There is definitely no plugin involved here. I attached a better image to show the pop-up widget in context. I've never seen a pop up widget with a separator before, so i was assuming it was an old feature, because these templates were made around 2011/2012. I'm in the process right now of updating them for 2021, with Fxplug for published parameter grouping./branding etc. I completely agree with you on the lack of disclosure groups for publishing. Sometimes we can end up with a parameters list a mile (or two) long in FCP - end users don't enjoy scrolling up and down to get to different features. I know we can make disclosure based published parameter UI in external tools, like FxCore from FxFactory for example, but as I understand it, and as you noted before, these are all external to Motion, and Motion is just the host. The UI be hosted by Motion and published through to FCP, but there is no interaction with Motion itself - we can't add any new publishing to the disclosure groups.


I need to migrate the template assets into new and improved templates, and realised I couldn't make the same style of pop-up widgets anymore.


Jun 22, 2021 12:16 AM in response to rowie302

Your screenshot is displaying a Menu which is part of the OS. If you got it from a template, then that template is using an FxPlug plugin to access it (which may or may not be publishable). It's not something that is part of the Motion Rig/widget/parameter setup. Dropdown menus you can publish from Motion will display the separators if they are already a part of the menu (a specific example would be the Blend Modes menu.) I am not aware of a method to create separators in published parameters unless you create them specifically (use a popup rig and fill it with '—' characters; there will be gaps... ugly, but functional.)


This is something that has bugged me for quite awhile. Besides having access to a decent separator, I would also love to be able to group a collection parameters into a disclosure region especially in circumstances where there are more than one similar items requiring the same parameter collection (for example, I'll have two or more items that I'll create animation features for - say - fade in/fade out with the start and end times as well as the start and end fades. It would be great to group those in a closable (hideable) box. (I'm not sure I explained that very well.)


Parameter lists that are longer than the window are a design disaster!

Jun 22, 2021 11:24 AM in response to rowie302

As far as I know *we* never could make that style pop-up, which begs the question: what template is this? Is it Apple native, or somebody else's? FxFactory has a "developer's toolbox" kind of API thing (which is why a lot of their templates break at major OS upgrades), so they might include the ability to apply menu separators (I wouldn't know... I don't go through FxFactory for my stuff). As far as Apple goes, I know there are "proprietary" things in Motion that they "do not allow" public access to. (For example: there is a specific "strings" that can be used for Text objects that will display various information about the clip an effect is applied to. [Don't ask. I'm not tellin'. If you figure out this menu separator thing, and it can be done in Motion alone (no outside plugins) — I'll trade you ;) ])


You *might* be able to pull off a trick. Drag the widget (or the entire Rig) to your Favorites from the old project. Open your new project and see if you can drag the widget/rig back into the new one. If you can, you will need to re-wire all of the controls, but you may also get to keep the separators. The reason why I recommend the saving the entire rig is because, if this is an Apple template, a lot of their templates add other widgets into published widgets (be very careful not to published widget widget controls - duplicated published controls will break) and there will be dependencies. [I've been able to save old copies of Droste, Primatte RT and a few other discontinued items this way.]


Jun 23, 2021 11:14 AM in response to rowie302

Alright. That *really* should have been in the documentation... My mistake was always adding several hyphens (or m-dashes) to make a divider and that's what you get — dashes "-------" :P


Thank you!


A deal is a deal. If you would like those "information" strings (A.K.A. "autotitles") contact me with the support form at:

https://fcpxtemplates.com/contact/

I'll send you a list.

(I'm not too sure how happy Apple would be if I published these publicly — they *used to be* "up" on the internet... no more.)


Did older versions of Motion have additional widget features?

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