# Editing References An editing reference is one of the creator's finished edits, written as VML: the language you edit in. Read one before you edit for them, so the new edit is cut the way they cut. It records an old edit. It is not a project to open, compile or render, and you still cut new speech through the transcript. References live in one library per computer, outside any project, so every project can read them. ## Find What Is Already Imported ```sh slate edit references --json ``` Returns the `library` folder and its `references`: each with its `name`, the Premiere `project` it came from, its `duration` in seconds, and the `path` of its folder. Open the `README.md` in that folder first. The library also keeps an `index.md` listing every edit. ## Import A Finished Premiere Edit Importing needs only the `.prproj` file. Premiere does not need to be installed. ```sh slate edit import premiere --json slate edit import premiere --sequence --json slate edit import premiere --sequence --video --json ``` 1. Without `--sequence`, the command lists the project's sequences, likeliest edit first. A project keeps earlier versions, stringouts and comps beside the cut that shipped. 2. When the creator is signed in and their published videos show which sequence went out, the result carries `suggested`. Import that one. When `suggested` is missing and two sequences look like versions of the same edit, ask the creator which one shipped. 3. With `--sequence `, the edit is written into the library and the result carries `reference` (its folder), `readme`, `files`, `index` (the library's list of every edit), and `unsupported` (what could not be carried over, each with a plain reason). Importing the same edit again keeps what was added to it and only describes what is still undescribed: one import reads a frame of at most 64 files and watches at most 120 files and 120 items. A project saved again is a different reference. ## What Signing In Adds Signed out, a reference holds what the project file alone determines, and its README says so. Signed in (`slate auth login`), the import also adds, under `notes` in the result: - **What the footage shows.** Each source file found on this computer gets a `note` from one frame of it. Only that frame is sent; footage is never uploaded. - **What the published video shows.** Slate finds the YouTube video the edit became and watches it at the moments the project file names and cannot show: footage that is no longer on this computer, graphics templates, and the comps, graphics and effect layers placed in the edit itself for a minute or less. Each is watched for its first ten seconds. `notes.video.watched` is the video's link. - **What each sound is used as** (music, voiceover, sound effect, ambience) and **the habits the edit shows**, each habit tied to the items that show it. When `notes.video.watched` says no published video matched, ask the creator for the link and import again with `--video`. The reference is complete without it; only those descriptions are missing. A reference does not say what its music sounds like. Each music file is named, with its role and where it plays. ## Read A Reference | File | What it holds | | --- | --- | | `README.md` | Read first. What the edit is made of, measured from the project: its length, each track, pacing, effects, what was left out. "How this edit is built" lists the creator's habits with the item ids that show each. | | `reference.vml` | The edit. The storyline is the bottom picture at each moment; everything else hangs off it under its Premiere track name. | | `sequences/*.vml` | Sequences the storyline is cut from, and long runs of text such as hand-made captions. | | `assets.vml` | The source files. A `note` says what a file shows. | | `transcript.vmlt` | What is said in the finished video, on the edit's clock, when the project holds it. | Reading `reference.vml`: - An item's `id` is `pr-` plus its id in the project file. Habits in the README cite these ids. - A `{/* … */}` after an item names its effects and the words spoken while it is on screen. - `range` on a clip is where the old edit cut that footage. It is not a cut to copy: transcribe the new take and keep ``s. - `class="jcut-0.25"` or `lcut-0.25` means the clip's sound leads or trails its picture by that many seconds. - A `` is something described, not rebuilt: an adjustment layer, a graphic, a comp. Its `note` names what it holds. An `On screen:` part says what the finished video showed while it played. - `