Automator Plus 1.4.0 — TL;DR on the new features

We’ve been hard at work at the Automator Plus to add a few new automations to the automator 1.4.0. Here they are:

New Automations

• Insert Project Item
• Refresh Item List
• Play/Pause
• Ripple Delete All Clips At Player
• Auto Edit Scene
• Add Scene Marker

Improvements

• Beat Detection can now start at the player
• Default reset profiles were updated with all the 1.4.0 automations
• The library of all automations got an update

New Automations

Insert Project Item

You can now insert any project item onto your timeline at the player using the Insert Project Item automation. This is especially useful if you have a transparent frame you want to add to your footage, or if you want to beep out sw€@r words.

Inserting a selected clip at the player.

Refresh Item List

For the Automator to know about your latest project panel, you will need to run the Refresh Item List automation before you can select a project item for the Insert Project Item automation.

Play/Pause

Start or pause playback on the timeline. Due to the way that the Automator intercepts the keys you press, you couldn’t previously trigger Premiere Pro’s play/pause using the spacebar. Now you can with the Play/Pause automation.

Play and pause the player with an automation.

Ripple Delete All Clips At Player

Being able to ripple delete all the clips beneath the player is another basic functionality of Premiere Pro that we’ve gone and added as an automation. The Ripple Delete All Clips At Player automation adheres to the same rules that Premiere Pro’s ripple delete follows, i.e. it won’t delete clips on locked tracks.

Ripple delete all the clips below the player.

Pro Tip: use the Toggle Track automation to be able to toggle the solo, mute, target or lock state of a spesific track.

Add Scene Marker

Adds a new type of marker, the scene marker. Choose which parts of your song a specific scene should be allocated to. A scene marker is added at the player using the Add Scene Marker automation and indicates where a new scene should start. The clips associated with each scene is specified using the Add Auto Edit Marker automation.

Adding scene markers.

Auto Edit Scene

Automatically edit your footage based on scene markers and auto edit markers. You can also shuffle the tagged clips on a per scene basis. For example, your clips marked with auto edit marker 1 will be edited into scene 1 on your timeline. The image below illustrates how you can tag the selected clips with an auto edit marker using the Add Auto Edit Marker automation.

The Add Auto Edit Marker automation adding markers to multiple clips.

Once you’ve tagged the clips for each scene, you can go ahead and do some automatic beat detection on an audio clip using the Beat Detection automation.

Beat Detection adding beat markers.

Now you can hit the Auto Edit Scene automation to insert the tagged clips per scene as a new sequence into your current timeline.

Auto Edit Scene 1.

Improvements

We’ve added a few minor improvements along with the new automations in 1.4.0.

Beat Detection At Player

The Beat Detection automation can now start adding beat markers at the player. This means that you can fine-tune where the first beat of the detected beats gets inserted. This is especially useful if you want the inserted beat markers on the off-beat of the song, i.e. 2 and 4 instead of 1 and 3.

The Beat Detection automation adding the first beat marker at the player.

Updated Default Profiles

Updated default profile.

If you didn’t know, you can always hit the Reset button in the Automator to reset to the default profile which now include the latest automations added in 1.4.0.

The default profile is a collection of automations in particular groups that suits our workflow.

The idea of the Automator is to be extendable to anybody’s workflow, so use the default profile as a starting point and remove and add automations to your heart’s desire.

Pro Tip: You can always export your current profile using the Export button and import it later using the Import button.

Updated Library

Library of all automations.

We’ve also updated the library of all automations to include the new automations.

If you ever get stuck on how to use an automation be sure to check out the definition of each argument in the library by hitting the Library button in the Automator.

Get in touch

Be sure to check out our website, or reach out to us on YouTube or Github with any questions you might have regarding ExtendScript or the Automator Plus extension. If you like what you are seeing and want to start automating the boring you can purchase the Automator Plus on Envato here.