Easily modify multiple text clips

In DR17 Studio I have a long timeline which uses stylised on-screen text throughout (using Titles->Text) and there are several hundred on a timeline - all entered manually. A section is in the image below.

Due to unexpected circumstances I now need to make a lot of changes, and a search or search/replace function would be ideal. But there doesn't seem to be such a thing.

I've dabbled with scripting (especially as I do a lot of Python work) but cannot find any functions that would allow me to go through each text clip on a track - either to modify it or export it all to a file which could be edited and imported via Python.

I'm not sure if there are in the Fusion API, but I wouldn't want to have to change all the text clips to Fusion clips anyway.

I wondered if anyone had any tips on making this process straightforward - even if the text editor in the Inspector were much bigger, it would be a (small) help.

I'm dreading what could be several hours work, with lots of opportunities for mistakes.

DR17-textex.jpg (164.71 KiB) Viewed 543 times

You could theoretically export the timeline to XML and try to find the text in the markup using Notepad / Textedit / Python etc.

I think the markup should be something like

Code: Select all

<generatoritem id="Rich 0">
...
  <parameter>
    <name>Text</name>
    <parameterid>s</parameterid>
    <value>Written Text goes here</value>
  </parameter>
...
</generatoritem>


Maybe it works for EDL or other export formats too.

You could theoretically export the timeline to XML.

Now that's a good bit of lateral thinking!! I'll give it a go - thanks.

You could theoretically export the timeline to XML

I've done a quit bit of experimenting - exporting to FCPXML is the only format that includes the actual text.

However DR17 doesn't parse the XML correctly.

It should parse any literal EOL in the text so that:

Code: Select all

<text-style ref="ts3944">Fairer even than the sparra
</text-style>
<text-style ref="ts3945">“Darsay, it must be summertime,”
</text-style>

should respect the literal EOL between the markers and show as

Code: Select all

Fairer even than the sparra
“Darsay, it must be summertime,”

but the lines are run together - it also doesn't include fade-in/fade-out parameters

I'm hoping I can write some VB code that will fix both of these by adding an extra EOL before each </text-style> and add a one-sided crossfade to each clip [update: the one-sided crossfade doesn't do what I need]

It's a start! Thanks again for the idea.

Glad that it helps!

Make sure that it works as expected when you import it back though.

I don't know all the details of your project, but on a timeline with so many titles that need to be modified during editing, a better option might be to use a Fusion comp in an adjustment layer (with or without variable text input). This way you could simply copy-paste the comp in a text editor and change stuff faster.

Glad that it helps!

THANKS!

And I agree that I need to test it first

I didn't go the Fusion route as I'm far less experienced with Fusion - but I also wasn't expecting to have to change things to such an extent. Basically, the whole thing is a set of poems read by the author, with text side-by-side with commissioned illustrations - intended to either be viewed as a whole (a LONG viewing!), or with chapter markers for YouTube.

With a bit of reverse-engineering I'm hoping it'll work - although I've duplicated the project so I can work on it!

Thanks again

Make sure that it works as expected when you import it back though.

Well, it didn't, and I've not had time to figure out why (it's very easy to mess up an XML file by mistake) and with nearly 100,000 lines I decided to give up.

So I've started working through all the text clips manually - it'll take a good few hours.

I'm also battling numerous other issues with things that don't work as I expect, and almost work as designed.

I like DR Studio, but it sometimes feels as though there's a push to add more and more features additional features rather than making existing features work more consistently, and long-standing problems are sometimes just left for people to work around.

But maybe when I've finished this project (the third biggie in as many months) I might go back and have a closer look.

Thanks for your input and idea!