Create a video playlist

Introduction

This tutorial explains basically how to build a playlist with videos. Since this is not different than building a playlist of images (which is already explained on these two video tutorials), other than the media type, let's make things a little more interesting and take the case of existing project (the one obtained after following "My first Elementi project" tutorial) in which we want to replace an existing video layer with a video playlist.

Tutorial

• Difficulty: Easy.
• Total duration: 5-10 minutes.
• Requirements:
  • Elementi, version 3.0.0 or later. (The latest version is recommended.)
  • Some video files compliant with the HMP specification. See Video decoding page for more details.
  • (Optional) One or more HMP devices using firmware 3.0.0 or later for the publishing part of the tutorial. (The latest version is recommended.)

Steps

Add the playlist to the layout

Add video files to the playlist

Change the order of items

Add a transition effect

Video playlist

1. Follow "My first Elementi project" tutorial (or, if you did that already, open that project).
   • For the rest of this tutorial you need to open the layout "First Layout" in the Browse panel (double click on the "First Layout" folder) and the layout master file "index.svg" in the Preview panel (Double-click on the "index.svg" file).
2. Create a new playlist.
   • If you have troubles with this step, see these two video tutorials.
3. Replace the existing video with the new playlist.
   1. The video layer was locked in the previous tutorial, so first click on the "Unlock" icon within the edit panel.
   2. Drag & drop the playlist from the browse panel to the Preview panel, right on top of the existing video layer.
      • The playlist replaces the video layer, because the latter is not locked. This is explained under Layout editing section.
   3. Save the changes.
4. Add video files into the playlist folder. This will ensure that all the videos used by the playlist are in the same location.
   1. Optionally, move the existing video into the playlist folder.
      • You can drag & drop the video on top of the playlist folder within the browse panel or use cut & paste buttons.
   2. Double-click on the playlist icon to open the playlist folder.
   3. Import some video files into the playlist folder.
      • To do so, simply drag and drop the files from Windows Explorer into the browse panel. For more details about this step, see this video tutorial about creating a new project.
      • When importing video files, make sure that they are compliant with the HMP specification. See Video decoding page for more details.
5. Edit the playlist
   1. Double-click on the playlist layer inside the preview panel (or edit panel) to open the playlist within the main layout context (i.e. without closing index.svg document). See more details about editing within layout.
      • You can also double-click on the playlist icon inside the browse panel, but this will close index.svg and open playlist.svg instead.
   2. Select all the videos inside the playlist folder.
   3. Drag & drop them from the browse panel into the edit panel. The videos are ordered alphabetically.
   4. You can change the order in which the videos are played using drag & drop (or the right-click menu). See more details about editing playlist items.
6. Optionally, you could add a transition effect for the playlist. For that:
   1. Click on the "Document Properties" button on the toolbar. This opens the "Document Properties" dialog.
   2. Click on the "Transition" button. This opens the "Transition Properties" dialog.
   3. Click on the "Fade" button.
   4. Select the "Fade to black" transition.
   5. Click "OK" twice to go back to the playlist.
7. Click on the "Leave" button from the toolbar to go back to the main layout (index.svg).
   • To return to the project root, click on the project name in the address bar on top of the browse panel.
8. Lock the playlist layer by clicking on the "Lock" icon within the edit panel. This is to ensure that the playlist layer is not modified by mistake within the preview panel.
9. Save the changes.
10. Optionally, publish the project to one or more HMP devices as described on "Publishing from Elementi" tutorial.