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# Dynamic content

Normally the texts and pictures in BluffTitler are static: they never change when playing the animation. However, by using special formatting you can make them dynamic. With dynamic content you can automate tedious editing work, turn BluffTitler into an RSS news feed reader, a photo browser or even create internet controlled interactive applications!

Warning: this is the most difficult page of the BluffTitler user guide. You require coding experience to understand it. Please do not get frustrated here if you are not a software engineer.

To explain how it all works, a practical example works best. Imagine an animation where you would like to introduce the members of a music group, one musician at the time. Creating the animation for the first musician is fun, but for all the others it is very boring: for each musician you have to create a new layer with the same keyframes, only at different positions and with different texts.

A better solution is to store all the texts in an XML file, like this:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
    <band>
      <musician>
          <name>Django</name>
          <instrument>Timbales</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
          <name>Aristide</name>
          <instrument>Congas</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
          <name>Oscar</name>
          <instrument>Bongos</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
        <name>Eelco</name>
        <instrument>Piano</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
        <name>Liane</name>
        <instrument>Bass</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
        <name>Elaine</name>
        <instrument>Violin</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
        <name>Simon</name>
        <instrument>Trumpet</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
        <name>Laurens</name>
        <instrument>Sax</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
        <name>Magda</name>
        <instrument>Vocals</instrument>
      </musician>
      <musician>
        <name>Daniela</name>
        <instrument>Vocals</instrument>
      </musician>
    </band>

Save this file as:

    c:\temp\salsa.xml

Now when you create a text layer and choose Media > Change Text... and enter the following text:

    xml:c:\temp\salsa.xml?band/musician/name

BluffTitler will load and parse this file to collect all the names. When playing the animation, BluffTitler will use a new name for every new loop.

You can also instruct BluffTitler to download the XML file from a HTTP server:

    xml:http://www.myurl.com/salsa.xml?band/musician/name

Adding parameters to your URL is no problem because BluffTitler uses the last questionmark as the separator:

    xml:http://www.myurl.com/salsa.xml?x=1&y=2?band/musician/name

# Dynamic pictures

If you want, you can add a tag containing the path of a corresponding picture:

      <musician>
        <name>Daniela</name>
        <instrument>Vocals</instrument>
        <picture>c:\temp\Daniela.jpg</picture>
      </musician>

You can instruct a picture layer to use this path by choosing Media > Change Texture... and entering the following string:

    xml:c:\temp\salsa.xml?band/musician/picture

# Global XML path

If you do not provide an XML path, BluffTitler uses the XML path of the Content field of the File > Show Properties... dialog:

    xml:?band/musician/name

# Attributes

This an example of an XML attribute:

    <picture url="c:\temp\Daniela.jpg" />

Attributes can be read with the following syntax:

    xml:c:\temp\salsa.xml?band/musician/picture.url

# Photo browser

You can instruct BluffTitler to loop through all pictures of a specific folder by placing dir: in front of the path:

    dir:c:\temp\salsa.jpg

BluffTitler will now loop through all pictures in the c:\temp folder.

# RSS news feed reader

RSS files are XML files so we can use the same technology to display its content. The most important tags in an RSS file are the title and description tags. If the URL of your favorite RSS feed is:

    http://www.X.com/rss/topstories.rss

You can make BluffTitler extract the titles with this string:

    xml:http://www.X.com/rss/topstories.rss?rss/channel/item/title

And you can extract the descriptions with this string:

    xml:http://www.X.com/rss/topstories.rss?rss/channel/item/description

# Flickr image browser

Many sites offer content in the XML format. This is the URL of an XML file produced by Flickr.com:

    http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/groups_pool.gne?
    id=81705672@N00&format=rss_200

Flickr.com stores the URL of its pictures in the url property of the rss/channel/item/media:content node. To instruct the picture layer to display those pictures you can use the following path:

    xml:http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/groups_pool.gne?
    id=81705672@N00&format=rss_200?rss/channel/item/media:content.url

# Indices and offsets

You can instruct BluffTitler to display a specific index with the following syntax:

    dir:c:\temp\salsa.jpg[3]

You can add an offset with the following syntax:

    dir:c:\temp\salsa.jpg[-1]

# Character sets

BluffTitler ignores all encoding and character set information in the XML files.

Use the font dialog (menu item Media > Change Font...) to set the character set. Most XML files use UTF-8, but Unicode (UTF-16, LITTLE-ENDIAN) is the best option when you are creating the XML files yourself.

# Clean URLs

A URL without a filename must end with a slash:

    http://www.blufftitler.com/

# Examples

In the Media\Shows\Dynamic Content folder you can find some dynamic content examples.