Airport Text 1.0.0

Airport Text is title plug-in for iMovie done the way thy should have been. On the surface, it re-creates the old text panels in airports and train stations that have arrays of flip-over letters (like the old alarm clocks).

However, Airport Text plug-in is also a show-case to show off our plug-in expertise.

Note: we are not very impressed with the way Apple has implemented the user interface for titles. It’s very buggy, and we may opt to remove or change some or all of above features.

The biggest problem we (still) have with this plug-in is that it shows iMovies shortcomings rather prominently (which is a shame, really, since iMovie is an incredibly cool program).

iMovies user interface for titles is not well thought-out, and haphazardly programmed. We feel lucky that it works at all, and many inconsistencies (e.g. you must click on a control after changing the text, or the plug-in wont be passed the new text) are definitely something we cant control.

Airport Text plug-in is a proof-of-concept. It proves that we can create working title plug-ins and that our core code base for this effect type works. However, we are not sure that we like the user interface Apple has forced upon title plug-ins.

We take exception especially to the highly un-intuitive way titles are applied to a clip, and the way text is passed to a plug-in. furthermore, there are features that we yet don’t understand, and that clearly should work differently if it was implemented as documented in the API documentation (e.g. size slider, speed slider).

And we really don’t like the way the user is forced to allot time for a title. we prefer the way effects work: apply the effect to a clip, and let the plug-in calculate everything, including duration.

Therefore, we might opt to convert the title plug-ins back to normal effect plug-ins in the future.