Can Templater check for existence of layer name in data source?
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We have a template that referenced a key in our data source. Problem was, the key was never added to the data source. The end result was that the layer displayed some value that it picked up from a different data source before it was last saved. Is there a way to force Templater to assign an empty string to a layer, if the key does not exist in the data source?
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After doing a little experimentation on this end, I don’t think it’s possible to force a blank value into a layer with no data at the moment. I’ve put in a feature request to explore how to get around this scenario moving forward, but the issue is that Templater can be used for layout or Time Sculpting operations even if there’s no corresponding layer name in the data source.
If the software were to indiscriminately disable any layer that didn’t have a corresponding data point, it would make it difficult to use just the layout functions of Templater without having to create superfluous data points to ensure that layers didn’t get disabled by mistake.
As far as the issue you’ve described goes, if the data point can be added to the QUE Job regardless of whether it has a value, you could theoretically use an After Effects Expression to detect the presence of a NULL value and then disable the layer as needed. Other than that, I’m not sure how you’d get around this issue since the lack of data presents a pretty complex problem.
Again, I’ve put in a feature request to see if we can add an option to disable a layer if no data is present, so it’s certainly something we can look into moving forward. Thanks for the suggestion, and if we’re able to come up with another solution in the interim, we’ll let you know.
Thanks!
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@jeff Thanks for the feedback!
