Creating a simple custom template for Podcast Composer
Podcast Composer has in it a couple of build-in templates for video layout and settings to get you started. It is surprisingly easy to create your own templates for custom layouts and presets. As an example I'm going show you how to change the default 20 seconds threshold in the dual source compositions (the threshold defines how long a primary source should be static before it swaps with the video source). With the same methods you can easily change the Quartz Composer templates that layout the dual screen composition as well.
Podcast Composer loads any additional compositions from ~/Library/Application Support/Podcast Composer/Resources/Compositions/. Any valid compositions that you add here will be available in Podcast Composer. We are going to add one, but we'll start easy by copying one of the default compositions to get us started. The default compositions are in the Podcast Composer.app bundle and you can access them by right clicking (or ctrl-clicking) on Podcast Composer.app and select 'Show package contents'. From here go into Contents/Resources/Materials/Compositions. This is where the default compositions are stored. We are going to copy the 'Theatre' composition, so go into 'DualSources' and drag 'Theatre.pqz' to your desktop (make sure you make a copy and don't move it).
Now open the bundle and find the Info.plist file. Open it with Property List Editor (you get this when you install the Developer Tools, if you don't have these installed stop here and install first. Property List Editor is a great tool when you are editing workflows). We need to change some settings in these file, first change the 'Bundle identifier' to our own unique name in the 'reverse DNS style'. In this case I'll make it 'org.podcastproducer.composition.dualsource.Theatre10secs'. We change 'Bundle Name' to the name we want to see displayed in Podcast Composer, I will use 'Theatre with 10 Seconds Threshold'. For the last step in this file we are going to change the 'Threshold' key (yes, it is as simple as that!) from 20 to 10. We also need to change the localization strings for the title to display our new name, so open in the 'en.lproj' folder the 'InfoPlist.strings' file in a texteditor and change 'Name = "Theatre"' to 'Name = "Theatre with 10 Seconds Threshold"'.
Now rename the folder from 'Theatre.pqz' to 'Theatre with 10 Seconds Threshold.pqz' and place it in ~/Library/Application Support/Podcast Composer/Resources/Compositions/DualSources/. If you now open Podcast Composer you will see a new option in the Dual Source import info window.
You can do a lot more customization with Podcast Composer, check out this Apple guide for more details:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/P..._v10.6.pdf
Podcast Composer loads any additional compositions from ~/Library/Application Support/Podcast Composer/Resources/Compositions/. Any valid compositions that you add here will be available in Podcast Composer. We are going to add one, but we'll start easy by copying one of the default compositions to get us started. The default compositions are in the Podcast Composer.app bundle and you can access them by right clicking (or ctrl-clicking) on Podcast Composer.app and select 'Show package contents'. From here go into Contents/Resources/Materials/Compositions. This is where the default compositions are stored. We are going to copy the 'Theatre' composition, so go into 'DualSources' and drag 'Theatre.pqz' to your desktop (make sure you make a copy and don't move it).
Now open the bundle and find the Info.plist file. Open it with Property List Editor (you get this when you install the Developer Tools, if you don't have these installed stop here and install first. Property List Editor is a great tool when you are editing workflows). We need to change some settings in these file, first change the 'Bundle identifier' to our own unique name in the 'reverse DNS style'. In this case I'll make it 'org.podcastproducer.composition.dualsource.Theatre10secs'. We change 'Bundle Name' to the name we want to see displayed in Podcast Composer, I will use 'Theatre with 10 Seconds Threshold'. For the last step in this file we are going to change the 'Threshold' key (yes, it is as simple as that!) from 20 to 10. We also need to change the localization strings for the title to display our new name, so open in the 'en.lproj' folder the 'InfoPlist.strings' file in a texteditor and change 'Name = "Theatre"' to 'Name = "Theatre with 10 Seconds Threshold"'.
Now rename the folder from 'Theatre.pqz' to 'Theatre with 10 Seconds Threshold.pqz' and place it in ~/Library/Application Support/Podcast Composer/Resources/Compositions/DualSources/. If you now open Podcast Composer you will see a new option in the Dual Source import info window.
You can do a lot more customization with Podcast Composer, check out this Apple guide for more details:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/P..._v10.6.pdf