Text cue background color

[bobhad...@gmail.com]

I'm trying to set the background color for the text in a Text cue and it doesn't seem to be working.  I can change the text color, but no matter what color I select for the background text it's always black.

Should this be working in the latest release?

Thanks

Bob

[micpool]

Text cues render on a  transparent  background.

You can use a custom Quartz Composer composition in a video effect on the text cue to use a coloured background behind the text like this:

The attached .qtz file allows you to adjust the RGB and Alpha for the background, as well as the padding of the background, relative to the text dimensions.

This can be improved, as the padding is a bit dodgy geometrically, and the parameters need to be forced into the correct order, but it works well enough, and is a good starting point for a finished version

One word of warning, custom quartz compositions seem to be crashing the audition window in QLab 4.2. 

Mic

[Igor Golyak]

This is great! Thank you! But is there a way to add this to all my text cues which are around 700?

[micpool]

This technique became obsolete in September 2019 with the release of QLab 4.5!

    ADDED: Support for background color formatting for Text cues. 

You can set this for one cue,  and paste cue properties to all your selected 700 text cues

Mic

[micpool]

You can also use OSC

/cue/{cue_number}/text/format/backgroundColor {red} {green} {blue} {alpha}

cue number could be selected or a wildcard

There is no equivalent AppleScript hook.

MIc

[Brent Lord]

Noting here for posterity that QLab 4.6.6 includes a fix that re-enables the ability to script the background color of a Text cue. The correct name of the AppleScript property to use going forward is "backgroundRgbaColor".

Below is an example script that will set the background color of cue "1" to RGBA 20% 10% 40% 100%.

- Brent

tell application id "com.figure53.QLab.4" to tell front workspace

set theBackgroundColor to {red:0.2, green:0.1, blue:0.4, alpha:1.0}

set theCue to cue "1"

set theFormat to text format of theCue

set theNewFormat to {}

repeat with substringFormat in theFormat

try

set backgroundRgbaColor of substringFormat to theBackgroundColor # attempt to overwrite an existing color record, if one exists

on error

set substringFormat to (substringFormat & {backgroundRgbaColor:theBackgroundColor}) # else add a new color record to the current format

end try

copy substringFormat to the end of theNewFormat

end repeat

set text format of theCue to theNewFormat

end tell