Templates

Introduction

The Templates menu is utilized for managing categories and templates, both of which are nested inside a group. It's essential to create the group in advance through the Users menu.

In contrast to groups, categories, and templates are not written to the database. Instead, they represent a dynamic snapshot of the categories and templates (folders and files) on the designated network drive, which can be specified under the Preferences menu.

Management can be carried out either through the web interface or directly on the network share. Both options function in the same way, ensuring that all templates and categories can be modified without requiring database access.

A category is positioned below the group and serves as the second level for structuring templates, allowing for flexible definition.

A template must be an Adobe Premiere Pro (.prproj), After Effects (.aepx*), or Audition (.sesx) project file. It should be placed in the category folder without any additional sub-folders and should be logically related to the category.

Templates play a crucial role in creating new projects, enabling the predefinition of projects in various forms. When utilizing the 'Add Project' dialog, it is possible to simultaneously create three individual project types. If these templates share the same name, single projects based on the respective project types can be created consecutively. This ensures the creation of up to three individual projects (Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Audition) with just one click.

Note that this doesn't apply when creating multiple projects with the same project type.

* To ensure compatibility with Helmut4, only After Effects projects saved as XML can be utilized. Regular projects with a .aep extension cannot be employed to initiate a new project. This limitation is imposed by the constraints of using Cosmo, as it lacks the capability to read the content of a project with the .aep extension.

For additional details, kindly refer to the Adobe After Effects documentation.

Overview

The creation of a new category and the upload of a template can be achieved very easily.

The category menu is segmented into a sidebar menu, a list view, and a hidden overlay menu.

Clicking on 'All' enables the display of all categories present in all groups. This feature provides a real-time snapshot of all folders discovered on the network share. The information will be loaded each time a user accesses the template site.

By group

Clicking on a dedicated group will display all available categories within the selected group.

List View

Add Category

Clicking this button will open a dialog for entering the name of a new category. Upon clicking 'Add,' the category will be created.

When you click on the empty area of a category row in the list, the hidden overlay for managing the templates associated with that category will be opened.

Upload Template

Clicking the button will open a dialog to upload a project template. These templates are stored in the folder of the respective category on the network storage.