how to add a city to world map in imovie11

Hi Yvonne,

This article from Macworld describes the process for iMovie '09, but it will probably work just as well in iMovie '11:

http://www.macworld.com/article/138922/2009/02/imovieplaces.html

I've used a program called CityListBuilder when previously using iMovie '09, but don't think I've tried it with '11. It's possibly the one you are referring to, as it appears to allow updating to '09 only (there is no button to update '11). It was written by Huibert Aalbers as a helper for iMovie '09. Find it here:

http://www.huibert-aalbers.com/Mac/macosx.html

John

yvonnefromtranmere wrote:

Thanks John. Doesn't seem to work for imovie11 - permissions blocked by Apple!!

You are dead right Yvonne - sorry to give you false hope. Obviously, I hadn't tried adding cities in iMovie '11. I last did this when doing a lengthy slideshow for a friend last year (in iMovie '09 I guess). It covered a trip around the western part of Australia and required the addition of many towns - all worked flawlessly then. I wonder why Apple changed the permissions in iMovie '11 - perhaps they don't like users meddling in the package contents folder!

Here's a pic of Get Info for the "WorldLocations" file:

As you say, I hope a future update allows the file to be modified. It seems silly to cripple the Maps feature in this way. A preference to add new cities would be welcome.

John

Yvonne - if you have iMovie '09 (as I do), the text file WorldLocations.txt seems pretty much identical to the iMovie '11 version. It may be possible to use the older file in iMovie '11. Drag the iMovie '11 file to the Desktop for safe keeping then copy the iMovie '09 file to the package contents folder in iMovie '11 (assuming you have it of course). Both files are 147 KB in size.

I haven't tried this myself, but will keep it in mind if and when I next need to add new locations to iMovie '11. The iMovie '09 file has read and write permissions, of course.

John

I add successfull the new place / city to iMovie '11 !!!!

I use the site with geographical position of choosen point:

http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocation.php

Put in iMovie in window with all defined places, in the top line:

latitude [space] longitude.

Put the name of new place in down line. It should work!!!

Rafal

Well done Rafal. I just tested your suggestion. As you say, just copy and paste the Latitude and Longitude, separated by a space, into the Location field (after clicking on the appropriate Location box in the Inspector). Then name the location in the "Name to display on map" field at the bottom of the panel. Couldn't be simpler!

There is now no need to make changes to the WorldLocations.txt file in iMovie's package contents folder. Also, no need to use the free app CityListBuilder (see my earlier posts).

I've also noticed that the read/write privileges can now be changed for the WorldLocations.txt file. Control-click to Get Info, then click on the padlock and enter your administrator password, then change Everyone to Read and Write. But, of course, there is now no need to do this.

Great suggestion Rafal - it works!

John

That seems like a cool way to keep the architecture of this one piece of iMovie open for some bit of customizing. It's cool you can use a Google to get a map coordinate and just name it any way you please.

Yes, it's very easy now to add new locations, as described by Rafal. It appears that a recent update to iMovie '11 gave us the ability to insert the co-ordinates directly into the dialog box. I don't recall seeing that "feature" before (although I haven't used Maps recently).

Earlier, it was necessary to modify the WorldLocations.txt file (in iMovie's package contents folder) - as explained in Rob Griffiths' Macworld article and as used in Huibert Aalbers CityListBuilder app. (refer to my earlier posts).

John

Why isn't it working for me?

You need a space between latitude and longitude.

See my video.

"I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link."

If you look at my picture, you can see that there's a Space between the two numbers. But it still doesn't work.

I just tried these same numbers. I got a place in Michigan on the lake.

I don't know what to suggest, but if you copied and pasted them from somewhere, you may have picked up some hidden characters or formatting. Try typing them in.

If you typed them in, try going to Google Maps, type them in there, then verify it is the location you want. Then copy and paste from the search field in Google Maps.

I just solved my problem by changing the dots in the coordinates with commas. It's probably different because the language of my OS is italian. Thanks anyway.

We are having consistent good results with latitude follwed by longitude both in decimal, with no spaces, but instead using a comma as a separator. Don't forget that west longiude has a minus before the number. No spaces. The user interface is a bit buggy so do your editing to get the proper format in TextEdit, then once you have the correct character string, paste into the iMovie map dialog. "Custom location" should appear immediately after coordinate pasting which then allows the entry of a name. Enter the name then click "Done". Another nice feature is that if you do NOT click "end" location, then the next map frame has the previous final location automatically entered as a start loction.

At least our iMovie11 configuration is flaky and our configuration is not special in the hopeless expectation of avoiding just such problems as these.

We found that iMovie11 does not consistently save our laboriously entered Map information. This problem just appeared, so we have no idea why at the moment, but will enter it here if we find the cause.

Beware of bugs. If you have a comperable nonbuggy tool, use it.