Large Format Spread Sheet of Data displayed

[IanW]

I am trying to build some race results that will auto populate Names, Nationalities, and Results. As well as move the positions as the stats change. Can someone help optimize this where I don’t have over 600 columns of data?

[ariestav]

Hi Ian,

For that many data points, you will want to move away from the 2D structure of a spreadsheet and use a JSON file.

The properties in a JSON object are the same thing as a spreadsheet column header. So, something like this:

{ 
  "score1": "7"
, "score2": "10"
, "score3": "3"
, "score4" : "8"
, "score5" : "7"
}

You can think of it as the column / row structure being “transposed” so that the column headers run up and down and the values are just paired with those properties.

Does this help?

[IanW]

I havn’t worked with JSON at all I was very interested in this product due to the Gsheets. Im not opposed to learning it but if you can point me in the direction of material that would be good for a beginner that would get a user up and running with your software. We have an approaching deadline so i cant really for new products not no mention I really want to use this product. as it seems to be the answer to a-lot of our workflow. So any JSON programs or information would be helpful. thanks

[ariestav]

@IanW You can certainly use GSheets, but the amount of columns will def. become unwieldy. Take a look at this documentation from our support site.

You just create blank text file, and then format according to what you see in that documentation. The terms on the left side of the colon : symbol would be the layer names in your AE comps. The terms on the right side of the colon : would be the values you want those layers to have. Since it’s all text, you will want to place the values of the text layers within double quotes.

The format is the following:

[
  {}  //first video job
, {}  //second video job
, {}  //third video job
, {} //fourth video job
]

The square brackets [] represent an “Array” of reversions. The curly braces {} represent a re-versioning job, and the comma separated key / value pairs "text-layer" : "value" represent the layers and the values.

To get Templater to read from the file, click the ... button next to the data field and point to the JSON file. In the Transport, set the start to 1 and then the end to the last object in the JSON array.

As for animating the row positions as the values change, that is a sophisticated task to accomplish. You can certainly do it in AE with Templater, but requires specific code to accomplish. This is not supported out of the box with Templater.

[Jon]

@IanW Just as an extra idea for dealing unwieldy data in a Sheet, you could also look at using formulas like transpose to combine or modify data in a way that makes it easier to manage. With transpose you can set up your data in rows in one worksheet (vertical), then automatically convert that data to columns (horizontal) in the worksheet that Templater would check. Here is a sample Sheet demonstrating this.

[IanW]

Thank you Jon that last tip was a big help. any other info would be very helpful . like how to use JSON with GSheets or vise versa. Ariestav seems to be a good idea but im still having trouble in the implementation of it.