Build 457
CRITICAL BUG FIX: Memory leak found and fixed in the inspector that caused the application to perform sluggishly and eventually lock up.
We are in the middle of several very cool features that are not 100% complete, but this fix was so important that we wanted to get it out. The upside is that we decided to leave the new features accessible, so you can have a look at them and feedback to us if you wish.
Cut Clips To VLC feature work in progress. This feature works similar to the Cut Clips feature and is an option in the Export menu of the timeline and composer.To use:
- In the Cut Clips Set Up, select the way in which you want the selected clips to exported.
- Enable Sharing via WiFi in VLC mobile app on the device. Take note of the http address, this will be used to configure Angles.
- Edit the 'Cut Clips VLC http.plist' preference file found in '/Users/Shared/Angles/Preferences' and add the IP address displayed in VLC.
- Select clips in the timeline and hit the Cut Clips To VLC option in the Export menu.
This feature has been tested a lot in the past month, but is currently limited to exporting to one device. Work to add more devices and a proper preference for adding the devices will come soon.
| Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|
| ⌥⌘E (Option Command E) | Cut Timeline or Composer Clips To VLC |
While checking for areas of optimisation in the MarkUp code as a result of the bug mentioned at the top of these notes, we enhanced the None button and optimised a few things:
- Added Hide State option to None buttons.
- Added Auto Up capabilities
- Nicer corners on rounded rectangular buttons. You will need to create new buttons in order to benefit using this better look.
- Button png images are smaller in some cases, so markups will load faster and be smaller in file size. More work to be done here in the future.
None buttons are useful when you want to group buttons together graphically using a background. None buttons do not mark anything in the timeline, but they are still technically a button. So another way of using None buttons is to have them hold state (Up / Down) whereby other buttons can read the state and do something. The Down/Up < All Up/All Down button actions can read the state of other button(s) from which you can trigger some pretty interesting things in terms of marking in the timeline and using the Centering actions to cruise around your MarkUp view.
JSON export added to the list of timeline exports. This export saves out all timeline data except notes in a JSON format. An option to resave the file as the timeline is updated is available for live exporting during capture and markup mode.
JSON is a very common data file structure and many languages have built-in parser support. So, we like to use this format for building web reports. For example, it is relatively easy to use the D3 JavaScript library to build beautiful reports using your timeline data exported via JSON.
Active Timeline Merging feature has been partially implemented. This feature will merge one or more linked timeline(s) into a destination timeline while allowing you to continue to work on the destination timeline.
This feature is pretty simple to use and working very well even at this early stage of development. It can be used at any time to simply merge timelines, but is most powerful during live capture.
To use: We will reference the timeline where clips will be merged into as the destination timeline and the timeline(s) to be imported as the source timeline(s).
- Open a new timeline or existing one as the destination.
- From the Link icon in the destination timeline toolbar, drag to another timeline icon in the file list in the left side bar, this timeline will be one of the sources.
- Continue to link other timelines in the same way
Clips and their qualifiers will be merged into the destination timeline. This link lasts until Angles is quit.
Future updates will include:
- If a clip is created in a source timeline, and then merged to the destination timeline, deleting this clip in the source timeline, will also delete it in the destination timeline.
- Add support for notes.
- Links will persist across Angles launches.
- Menus to manage linking, including: unlinking, pausing and resuming.
Qualifier Attributes have been mostly implemented. A qualifier attribute adds further description to a qualifier, similiar to the way a qualifier adds further description to a clip. For example, you may have a qualifier called Pass and qualifier attributes such as: xy location, passer name and pass recipient name that can be attributed to the qualifier within the clip.
Depending on the data entry sequence, a qualifier attribute can be configured to be pushed down before or after a qualifier using the attibute's stage setting. When the stage is set to before, the attribute will be stored until a qualifier is pushed down, then it will be added to the qualifier. When the stage is set to after, the attribute will be added to the last qualifier pushed down.
This set of features create a powerful way of marking relational data points and setting up simple ways of structuring and exporting data. A CSV export will be added where each qualifier and its attributes are exported as a row with the clip data including notes.
Current limitations:
- Attributes can only be seen in timeline plist or json file. Use Reveal in Finder feature to navigate to the plist or json file. These will appear in the Qualifier Editor of the Inspector soon.
Cartesian Coordinate Button has been partially implemented for qualifiers and qualifier attributes. When a qualifier has the Cartesian option selected in the inspector, coordinate values are recorded in the timeline plist and json file.
Currently, the cartesian xy values are represented with values ranging from 0 to 1. (0,0) is the top left corner of the button and (1,1) is the bottom right corner of the button.
While the option is available for qualifiers and qualifier attributes. In most scenarios, the cartesian option will be used with qualifier attributes, but there are good reasons to have the qualifier itself be a cartesian type. For example, you may want to simply track location for a player during a passage of play; we might create a cartesian qualifier called "Bob", then click this button to record where Bob traveled on the field of play during the clip.
This feature will be updated to allow configuration for the grid of values, max and min values, origin location, etc. This will make working with the data a lot more human friendly.
Single Angle Composer export is super fast again. The checks for movies have been optimised.
Notes Options added to display menu for individual notes in the inspector:
- Add A New Note Type
- Remove ••• from list
- Clear Contents Of ••• Notes