Yer Basic Timeline - Version 1.0 Release! Version Program Documentation Updated 9/25/96 - DW Yer Basic Timeline, the 'YBT' pre-release 'sampler' program, and this document are all Copyright 1996 by Daniel Wolf. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. *** PROGRESS REPORT! We have progressed a great deal since the last update. We're now at version 1.0 of the YBT RELEASE VERSION and 0.96 of the YBTSampler FREE sample version. YBT is in RELEASE! Many improvements have been added: 1. Changed to regular HiRes screen instead of SuperHiRes. This means NO SuperDenise is required on A2000s, less chip ram used, faster responsiveness, and more. It does limit the max time on display on the timeline to 10 minutes instead of 20. 2. Added additional key commands to quickly move around the project. 3. Added a quick-reference guide to the menu display! 4. Swatted a few of those nasty bugs! 5. And NOW you get a 'instant highlight' which lets you step through the text listing and immediately underline the corresponding crouton's 'bar' on the graphic timeline! THIS FUNCTION IS DISABLED IN THE SAMPLER PROGRAM. 6. Just added - the 'a' key toggles between letting you see crouton start and duration times (on the top of screen text display) or crouton start and end times. 7. Added one last super feature: you can now tell YBT to 'jump' to a timeline position which starts with whichever crouton you have selected in your Flyer Project! Just select a project crouton in your Flyer Project, go to the YBT screen, hit the 'v' key, and VOILA! the timeline will start at that crouton! This YBT 'Sampler' program may be freely obtained from the MegageM Digital Media Web Site - http://www.megagem.com There is no charge for this 'sampler' version of the YBT program. It may NOT, however, be distributed without specific authorization by Daniel Wolf and/or MegageM Digital Media. We WANT those who desire YBTSampler to obtain it ONLY from our web site! Or EMail to webmaster@megagem.com if you have trouble downloading it with Netscape or other non-Amiga browser. Video Toaster and Flyer are registered trademarks of NewTek, Inc. *** What's in the Sampler Download Archive *** The ybtsam.lha file contains these files: ybtsampler the sampler program itself (version 0.96) ybtsdoc.txt this text document! ybtsdoc.txt.info an icon to bring up the DOC file qview a text viewer for the DOC file You can read the DOC file with ANY text editor or viewer. *** Installation *** First you must 'un-lha' the ybtsam.lha file. I recommend you do that in your ram: disk as that is ALWAYS a harmless thing to do. You're on your own for that. LHA is a COMMON Amiga cruncher/decruncher, so you should already have it and KNOW HOW TO USE IT! At any rate, THE ONLY RELEVANT ISSUE IS TO GET THE YBTSAMPLER program into your c: directory or your Toaster: directory - some directory to which you have a 'path' on your Amiga! 1. Copy the ybtsampler program to your c: directory 2. Copy the ybtsdoc.txt file and its icon anywhere 3. Copy the qview file to your c: directory To read the DOC file, just double-click on it. *** Requirements *** You MUST have the Flyer or Toaster 4.1 going BEFORE you run YBTSampler. You MUST have a PLAYABLE PROJECT up in the Toaster or Flyer. You MUST have about 150K of chip ram for YBTSampler to open its screen. NOTE - This updated version DOES NOT REQUIRE SUPER-DENISE! It opens an 'ordinary' Amiga Hi-Res screen, NOT the SuperHiRes used previously. It also uses about 1/2 the chip ram the previous version used, but the time line is limited to 10 minutes max on display at once. This new version will run on any Amiga with a Toaster 4.1 and/or Flyer system. *** Running YBTSampler *** To run the YBTSampler program: 1. Get the Flyer going 2. Get a PLAYABLE PROJECT up into the Flyer 3. open a Shell or CLI 4. type in 'run ybtsampler' 5. to QUIT out of the YBTSampler program, use its QUIT menu option *** About YBT's Timeline *** A Timeline Displays an Alternative View of a Project YBT lets you see your Toaster 4.1 or Flyer project on a timeline. The timeline shows the elements of your project as horizontal colored 'bars'. The horizontal length of a colored 'bar' corresponds to the time duration of that project element. For example, you might have a Toaster Framestore element in your project which lasts for 10 seconds and a Flyer Clip element in the same project which lasts for 20 seconds. YBT's timeline 'bar' for the Framestore will be 1/2 the length of the 'bar' which YBT shows for the Clip. A timeline lets you see time and sequencing information about your project in a way that is completely hidden when you view the project with the NewTek user interface 'crouton' display. This is especially true of Flyer projects with audio overlapping video and multiple channels of audio, at that! Color Coding the Timeline YBT also uses the color of a timeline bar to denote what kind of project element it represents. A Flyer video clip appears as an orange 'bar', while a Framestore (also a video object) appears as a red 'bar'. Audio clips appear green, and so on. Positionally Coding the Timeline YBT also uses a bar's vertical position to denote it's 'type'. For example, a Flyer video object (Framestore, Flyer video clip, etc.) will appear on one of two vertical positions on the timeline. Audio clips (and tracks of video clips which contain their own audio) appear on one of four vertical positions for the Flyer's four audio stereo channels. If too many different types of objects appeared at the same vertical position, their overlap would create more confusion than does the crouton-only GUI! Having different types of objects on 'separate timelines', you can easily observe when video effects start and end with respect to the end of one video object and the start of another. Likewise, the timeline display with different 'tracks' lets you observe the timing relations between audio and video and switching events! Hooray! You can get a clear display of the timing relations which are critical to rapidly creating effective Toaster and Flyer projects. PRECISELY WHAT I INTENDED YBT TO DO! *** The YBT Display Layout *** The top half of YBT's screen shows a list of up to 32 elements of your project. This list shows each element's file name, element type, video starting time, video duration, audio starting time, and audio duration. You can also switch this display to show 'ending' times instead of duration times with a single keystroke. NOTE - YBTSampler is LIMITED TO 10 CROUTONS. The items in the list have their element type and video starting time color-coded to match the element's timeline bar display to make it easy to visually relate the list entries to their timeline bars. In the middle of the screen are two sliders - a large timeline slider and a smaller timeline scale slider. You can move the timeline slider to select which project element becomes the 'start' of the timeline (and also the top item in the list display). The timeline slider automatically adjusts to the number of 'croutons' in your project. You can move the timeline scale slider to adjust the displayed length of the timeline bars and also adjust how many elements will 'fit' the fixed timeline display window. The scale factor slider has 11 possible positions which let you view from 10 seconds to 10 minutes in the timeline display area below. The YBT timeline occupies the bottom part of the screen. It shows a labelled set of 8 timeline bar displays within a large rectangular region. At the far lower left of the display is a numerical indicator of the project element which is at the 'top of the list'. At the lower left corner of the timeline display area is a time code which indicates the current 'starting time' of the timeline itself. This is always the same as the topmost 'video' starting time in the list display at the top of the screen and serves as a reference time value for the remainder of the timeline. *** Features *** The Timeline Slider: Operates with the mouse or the Amiga Right- and Left-Arrow keys. Steps through the project with single clicks or slides through the project (keep your eye on the numerical indicator at lower left corner of the screen). Selects the current 'top' project item in the display list which is also the 'leftmost' item on the timeline display. Clears the display of the time scale 'hash' marks. NOTE: This slider is DISABLED in YBTSampler! The Scale Factor Slider: Operates with the mouse or the Amiga Up- and Down-Arrow keys. Is non-linear: successive positions of this slider are not exactly equal steps as in the usual Amiga slider. You get a series of steps which correspond to how many video fields are represented by a single pixel width of the display on the timeline: (1 field is 1/60 second of video). The timeline is about 600 pixels wide, so the available options of this slider correspond to: 1 field per pixel 10 seconds total display 2 field per pixel 20 seconds total display 3 fields per pixel 30 seconds total display 5 fields per pixel 50 seconds total display 6 fields per pixel 60 seconds total display ( 1 minute) 10 fields per pixel 100 seconds total display 12 fields per pixel 120 seconds total display ( 2 minutes) 15 fields per pixel 150 seconds total display 20 fields per pixel 200 seconds total display 30 fields per pixel 300 seconds total display ( 5 minutes) 60 fields per pixel 600 seconds total display (10 minutes) No higher-order scalings are provided because they will fail to display events of 1 second. When you move the Scaling Slider, the color-coded time hash marks magically appear vertically overwriting the timeline area to show the time divisions directly on the color-coded timeline bars. The 'black' hash marks denote 1 second. The 'green' hash marks denote 10 seconds. The 'red' hash marks denote 60 seconds. The one-second black hash marks are NOT DRAWN once they are too close to be useful, leaving the 10-second and 60-second on display - and the hashmarks stay useful and clean-looking. Clearing the hash marks is easy - just move the time slider or use the keyboard 'C' key (or 'c' key). The Keyboard: The 'A' (or 'a') key toggles between letting you see the video and audio 'duration' times or the video and audio 'ending' times on the upper screen's text crouton and time code display area. The 'R' (or 'r') key performs a RE-DO (a reanalysis of the entire project) which takes about 1 second per 50 croutons. The 'C' (or 'c') key performs a hash-mark removal if they're in your way. The 'P' (or 'p') key jumps you to the end of your project. The 'Q' (or 'q') key jumps to the beginning of the project. The 'M' (or 'm') key jumps to the middle of the project. The 'H' (or 'h') key steps DOWN the crouton text list and highlights corresponding crouton on the timeline graphic display. The 'I' (or 'i') key steps UP the crouton text list and highlights corresponding crouton on the timeline graphic display. The 'E' (or 'e') key displays a 'end of list' vertical line marker which shows the 'crouton' at which the displayed list ends (in case the timeline actually shows more events than can be listed). The 'V' (or 'v') key jumps the YBT timeline display to start at whichever crouton you have highlighted (selected) in your Flyer Project! The Arrow Keys - Up-Arrow and Down-Arrow control the Scale Slider Left-Arrow and Right-Arrow control the Timeline Slider NOTE - The YBTSample program has some keys disabled! The Menus: The QUIT and RE-DO commands are obtained via usual Amiga menu options, which include Right-Amiga-Key alternatives, Q and R, respectively. There is also a command quick-reference guide BUILT INTO the menu display which shows all keystroke commands, ARexx commands, and relevant display information guides. ARexx: The QUIT and REDO commands can be achieved from ARexx. The PORT NAME for Yer Basic Timeline is YBT (for the ARexx 'ADDRESS command). To perform the available commands from an ARexx script, use this form: ADDRESS YBT QUIT or ADDRESS YBT REDO etc. Color Codes: Orange Flyer Video Red Framestores Purple CG Scrolls Blue CG Keys Dark Green Flyer Video with Audio Bright Green Audio Yellow ILBM Switcher Effects (color cycle wipes, etc.) BlueGreen ALGO Switcher Effects (smooth fade, etc.) Pink ANIM Switcher Effects (Falling Sheep, etc.) and there are more for you to discover! Select/Highlighting Feature: (new in version 0.99) Use the 'h' or 'i' key to step through the displayed text list of croutons on YBT's upper display. You'll see a small bright yellow 'bullet' line appear both at the far left of the crouton's file name as well as in-between the crouton's 'type' and 'start time' text displays. Simultaneously, the corresponding timeline graphic colored 'bar' (or 'bars' if there is split audio!) will be highlighted by an underline of white. This feature lets you fluidly slip up and down the crouton list and instantly see the corresponding visual reference to that item on the graphic timeline display. Jump to Flyer Spot Feature: (new in version 1.0) Select a crouton on your Flyer Project, go back to YBT, and hit the 'v' key. YBT will instantly set its timeline display and text list of croutons to start at the crouton you selected in your Flyer Project. Now you get an INSTANT reference tie-in between your Flyer Project crouton and its view on the timeline in YBT. Copyright 1996 by Daniel Wolf September 25, 1996