CatDV Project Template Plugin V2 January 24th 2025

Introduction

We are pleased to announce the release of CatDV Project Template Plugin v2. Please note that this version now requires a license. The updates are designed to enhance your project management capabilities and offer greater flexibility in your workflows.

Requirements

As a starting point, you will need to ensure you have the following installed:

CatDV Pegasus Server 10.6.6 or later

CatDV Desktop Client 14.2.8 or later

CatDV Project Creation Tool 2.0.0 or later

CatDV Project Creation Tool License Plugin

Getting Started

Installation

Copy the project-template-plugin.jar file into your CatDV Server’s plugin folder:

e.g. on Unix systems: /usr/local/catdvServer/plugins

e.g. on Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Square Box\CatDV Server\plugins

Description

Project Templates in CatDV enable you to define one or more templates for creating new projects.

A Project in CatDV consists of:

1. A catalog

A set of metadata fields stored at the catalog level (typically entered at the time of creating the project)

A project folder (based on a template folder)

As a minimum, your catalog fields should include a field such as "Title" or "Name", which you will then reference in the schemas to create the Catalog name and Project Folder name.

Expand Variables Guide

Enabling the "Expand Variables" option during project setup provides a flexible way to customize filenames and file contents. This feature allows you to use various variables to dynamically generate and organize your files, promoting consistency and efficiency in your project setup.

Note: Different sets of variables are supported for filenames and file contents. Please read the descriptions below carefully to understand which variables apply to each context.

Date Variables

$D	Adds the date as YYYYMMDD in filenames or ${D} in file contents.
$T	Adds the time as HHMMSS in filenames or ${T} in file contents.
$M	Adds the year and month as YYYYMM in filenames or ${M} in file contents.
$_y	Adds the full year (YYYY) in filenames or ${_y} in file contents.
$_m	Adds the month (MM) in filenames or ${_m} in file contents.
$_d	Adds the day of the month (DD) in filenames or ${_d} in file contents.
$_D	Adds the day of the month (no leading zero) in filenames or ${_D} in file contents.
$_i	Adds YYYY-MM-DD HH in filenames or ${_i} in file contents.
$_I	Adds the date and time in ISO format in filenames or ${_I} in file contents.

Unique Identifiers

$u	Adds epoch milliseconds in filenames or ${_u} in file contents.
$U	Adds base-36 uppercase time in filenames or ${_U} in file contents.

Sequence Identifiers

$n	Adds a single-digit sequence in filenames.
$nn	Adds a multi-digit sequence, padded with zeros in filenames.

Project Template Fields

${identifier}

Adds values from fields on the Project Creation Panel. Variables within template files must be in the form ${identifier}.

Additional Notes

You can also use '/' characters in filenames to create folders.

Step 1 – Enter your plugin license

To get started with Project Creation Tool v2, you need to enter your plugin license. Begin by logging into the CatDV Server administration interface and navigating to the "Server Settings" section. In the "Advanced" tab, append the license code in the following format:

catdv.project_template.licence_code=[put your license code here]

After entering the license code, make sure to click "Save" to apply the changes. You will then need to restart the CatDV server for the license to take effect. Once the server restarts, you should see the new options for "New Project Template" and "Configure Project Template" in the tools menu, indicating that the license has been successfully loaded.

Step 2 - Create a Catalog Field group

Organize your catalog metadata by creating a Catalog Field Group. This enables you to manage your metadata fields and keep related fields together.

Step 3 - Create a Catalog Field

Once you’ve created a Catalog Field Group, you can now define your own Catalog fields. This allows you to add and customize metadata fields within the group to meet your specific needs.

For details on supported field types and setup instructions, refer to the Catalog Field Types and Setup Guide.

Step 4 - Create a Catalog Panel Set & Panel Fields

In this section, you configure a Catalog Panel Set and Panel Fields, which will appear as a pop-up dialog when users click "Create Project." This dialog ensures users enter all necessary metadata before successfully creating a project. Make sure to select "Catalog" as the Object Type before clicking "+New" to create the Catalog Panel Set.

Step 5 - Create a template folder

After defining your Panel Sets and Panel Fields, set up a Template Folder to establish a standardized folder structure for your projects.

· Multi-Level Structure: You can create a nested folder structure to meet your project needs.

Expand Variables: Customize folder and file names dynamically using variables. Invalid characters in filenames will be automatically normalized. Refer to the Expand Variables Guide for supported variables.

You can use variables in your file names and contents.

Step 6 – Create and configure Project Template

Log in as a CatDV Administrator to create and configure a project template. Only administrators will see the options for 'New Project Template' and 'Configure Project Template'. Click on 'New Project Template' to start creating a new template.

When creating a project template, you provide:

Template name	The name you assign to the template, used to identify and differentiate it when creating new projects.
Production group	The category or team in which new projects will be organized and managed. Create
Visibility	Determines whether the project or template is accessible to or can be seen by production groups other than the one it was created for.
Project creation panel	The interface or section used for setting up and configuring new projects, including inputting details and selecting options.
Template folder	A predefined folder on the file system containing subdirectories and template files, used as a base structure for creating new project folders.
Root folder	The primary directory where new project folders will be created and stored.
Catalog name schema	The naming convention used to generate catalog names for new projects.
Project folder name schema	The naming convention used to generate the names of new project folders.
Sanitize project names	Replaces invalid characters in catalog and folder names to ensure compatibility. Only the following characters are considered valid: · Digits (0-9) · English alphabet characters (both uppercase and lowercase, a-z and A-Z) · Underscore (_) · Parentheses (( and )) · Percent sign (%) · Backslash (\) · Hyphen (-) · Whitespace characters (space, tab, newline) · Dot (.) Any character not included in the above list will be replaced with an underscore (_) to maintain a clean and consistent naming format.
Auto-ingest clips	Automatically ingest clips when a new project folder is created.
Expand variables in	Filenames - Allows the use of CatDV variables in filenames, enabling dynamic generation of file names based on project-specific data. File Content - Allows the use of CatDV variables within file contents, enabling the creation of customized files populated with project-specific information.

Step 7 – Re-login for changes to take effect

You will now have a new command on the Tools menu to create News projects

If you don’t see the "Create Project: New" option under your tools menu, ensure that the user has the necessary permissions for the project template's production group.

Step 8 – Create a News Project

Notice how the catalog and folder names have been created based on the schemas. In our example we use ${news.package.type}/${news.package.name} to include the title provided by the user. $M to generate a year and month in format YYYYMM to create the catalog under a catalog folder based on the current month.

The catalog appears in the navigation bar after refreshing your browser:

Your project will be created automatically with the same structure and settings defined in your project template:

If you use expand variables in your project, the file names and file content will be dynamically replaced with the specified values:

Your filename variables will be normalized upon project creation. For example, if your package name is ‘Tech-Trend#2024’, where # is not an acceptable character, it will be replaced with an underscore, resulting in Tech-Trend_2024.

If you enable auto-ingest clips in your project, files created from the project template will be ingested automatically.

Click on the pencil button if you want to edit the catalog fields:

You may also create new project with Desktop client, you will find Create new Project under Tools menu:

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