Attributes Power Editing menu items

The following Tools menu items provide power editing productivity aids for doing mass attributes updates on ALL Sound Items (or a selected set) with one command. You need to understand the concept of Default Attributes before using these operations. The basic concept is, you set the value of an attribute in your Default Attributes. Then you can apply that value to many Sound Items in one operation. Most of these operations require you to click Actions -- Refresh List (or the Refresh List button on the Find toolbar.) after performing.

Caution! There is NO UnDo function for the following operations so use them carefully. These operations can change a lot of attributes in a big hurry.
Tip - Save before using - It is recommended that you Save your list before using these. Then if you make a mistake you can always reload the saved list and resume editing from that save point.

Selecting Sound Items for Updates

First, you select Sound Items you want to operate on. Any subsequent Attributes Updates from the menu items below, will use this as the target list. The default is ALL Sound Items until you make a selection list. Some list edit operations like Cut or Paste will invalidate a Restricted Selection. Selection reverts back to ALL in this case.


• Select All: for Mass Attribute Updates  - Select entire list (ALL Sound Items). This is checked when ALL are selected.
• Restricted Selection: for Mass Attribute Updates  - You are prompted to make a Restricted selection set of Sound Items for mass updates. This is checked when a Restricted selection is in effect.
  Tip - Sort before selecting - For example, if you want to make changes only to your announcement Sound Items, sort the list on Category before making this selection. That way all the announcements are grouped together in the selection list and you can do a range selection (shift + mouse click).
• View Selection: for Mass Attribute Updates  - Views the current set of Sound Item selections for mass updates.

Making Mass Updates

Use the following menu items to do mass updates to the selected set of Sound Items (see selection technique above). In most cases, you are prompted to select one or multiple attributes to change -- setting the value from the default attribute value. The All Attributes selection will set every attribute in that Attributes Group.


• Update Play Markers Attributes 
  Start, End and Fade Markers - They allow you to set the marker attributes to Factory settings for the current Selected Sound Items OR for ALL Sound Items in the list. The default is a begin and end marker at zero and the end of the sound, both disabled, and no fade markers.



• Update Play Controls Attributes 
  Play Controls - They allow you to set individual attributes from the current Default attributes. This will change that attribute on every Sound Item in the list. Allows for setting: Volume, Volume scroll speed, Pan, Pan scroll speed, 3D Effects , FX Effects . attributes.



• Update Descriptors Attributes 
  Descriptors - They operate the same as the Play Controls Attributes menu items (see above). Allows for setting: Name, Description, audio Soundfile attributes.



• Update Play Modifiers Attributes 
  Play Modifiers - They operate the same as the Play Controls Attributes menu items (see above). Allows for setting: Loop, Delay, Delay Time, Multiple Play, Number of Multiple Plays, Preemptive and Output Group. attributes.



• Update Classifiers Attributes 
  Classifiers - They operate the same as the Play Controls Attributes menu items (see above). Allows for setting: Act, Scene, Page and Category. attributes.



• Update Sound Item Length  - If you edit an audio file in an external audio Editor and thus change it's file length, you need to reset the Sound Item to match the new size. The End-At markers is reset in this process. Fade markers are not deleted but should be repositioned manually based on the new sound timing. If you do not resize the Sound Item the Time field will likely be incorrect and markers may end up out of bounds.

Figure 1. Sound List Editor and Play Console

Power Editing example

Let's say you want to add a 1 second delay to every Sound Item. Follow these steps.

1.  Select any Sound Item and set the desired Delay Value and check the Post-Delay checkbox.
2.  Now click the Save as Default Attributes button on the Find toolbar. This saves the attributes of the selected Sound Item as the current default attributes.
3.  Go to Tools -- Update Play Modifiers Attributes . The operation selection dialog pops up.
4.  Next select these two operations Post-Delay: Enable and Post-Delay: Value (Ctrl + mouse click to do multi-select). Then click OK. These two attributes will be set on all Sound Items to the default attributes values.

That's it. All your items should now have the desired Delay. You may have to click the Refresh List button on the Find toolbar for some types of changes to appear.