What are Conditions?
Throughout the Cuez Automator, (sets of) functions for a configured device can be created on multiple levels:
On the triggers (Blocks, Items) themselves, in the form of:
Or in the form of:
By default, when adding new (sets of) functions, these will be added with the 'ALWAYS' condition. This means that the configured functions will always run when triggered. In certain cases, however, you might want to run the functions only when certain conditions are met - this is where the 'IF' and 'IF ELSE' conditions come in.
Which Conditions are available and how to use them?
As shown in the animation above, the Automator gives you the choice between three different types of Conditions.
'ALWAYS':
The default 'ALWAYS' condition is used for (sets of) functions that you want to perform every time you trigger a Block or Item, click a CuezDeck button, or wherever you are configuring your functions.
You can add the functions as needed, meaning you can tell the Automator on which device, which functions would need to happen when triggered.
'IF' and 'IF ELSE':
The 'IF' and 'IF ELSE' conditions are used for (sets of) functions that you want to perform only if certain conditions are met.
In case of an 'IF', you can define the (set of) functions that need to happen only when that condition is met.
In case of an 'IF ELSE', you can define both the (set of) functions that need to happen when that condition is met, as well as the (set of) functions that need to happen otherwise (meaning if the condition is not met).
Plain text field
When using a Plain text field as a condition, you can define the condition based on the value of this field. As a result, you can configure the (set of) functions to run only if the Plain text field:
'Is' or 'Is Not' a specific value
'Is Empty' or 'Is Not Empty'
'Contains' or 'Does not Contain' a specific value
'Starts With' or 'Ends With' a specific value
Label field
When using a Label field as a condition, you can define the condition based on the value of this field. As a result, you can configure the (set of) functions to run if the Label field:
'Is' or 'Is Not' a specific value, which you can then also select in the 'Value' dropdown. The options available in this dropdown are the same options as configured in the Label field of the Block configuration in Cuez itself.
Media field
When using a Media field as a condition, you can define the condition based on the value of this field. As a result, you can configure the (set of) functions to run if the Media field:
'Is Empty' or 'Is Not Empty'
'Is Video'
'Is Image'
'Is Audio'
Conditions example
Let's look at an example of how we can make use of Conditions for different types of Lower Thirds (or Straps) in combination with Viz Flowics.
Creating the Block configuration in Cuez
First of all, we have to create our Lower Third Block configuration in such a way that it provides us with all the fields we want or need to automate. In this example we created a Block with the following fields:
Title: for the title of our topic, the name of our guest,...
Subtitle: for the subtitle of our topic, the function/role of our guest,...
Location: for the location of our topic, guest,...
Type: to select which type of lower third we'll want to show on screen, as we have multiple designs, one for each type/situation
Tag: to select if we want to show a tag in the top right corner of the screen and which one, allowing us to indicate if our segment is live, on location or both for example
Once our Block is configured with the fields we need, we can move on to the Automator where we can configure the (sets of) functions we want to run on Viz Flowics for our Lower Third Block (here called 'L3'). Using conditions, we will automatically trigger the correct lower third and tag designs to come on screen.
Automating the Block in the Automator
Single/double/triple line lower thirds
The more straightforward designs and automations we can have, are the ones that depend on whether we have:
Only a Title
A Title and Subtitle
A Title, Subtitle and Location
Or any other combination of these fields we might want to automate
An example of what these conditions could look like for a single and double line lower third design:
Lower thirds with different designs and tags
Below, we also see the following 'IF' conditions:
A first one that shows an example of how we use the Tag field to show our 'Location' tag in Viz Flowics
A second one that shows an example of how we use the Type field to decide which of our lower third designs to use in Viz Flowics
Automating all combinations
With the above examples, we can then recreate similar conditions in order to automate all the type/tag combinations we can have.
Result
This one time configuration results in us being able to simply trigger our Lower Third Block, without having to worry about which fields were filled, which type it is and which tag was selected. The Automator now takes care of that for us.
In the recording below, you can see an example of these different lower thirds, which are configured to automatically be taken out after 2 seconds for demonstration purposes.
