A Template is a pattern of tracks which has been prepared to play automatically until it is stopped.

An example of a Template might be a pattern of tracks for Saturday night, or to fill in a Country and Western program or an “easy listening” program.

As a Template plays it automatically includes announcements, Station IDs and even time calls.

You can load a template in a player as follows:

You have to select Open template… in the menu of the player.

DO NOT choose one of the recently opened options in the lower part of this menu.

A list of available Templates should be listed in the next dialogue window. Choose the appropriate one and click Open.

Note: Template files are stored on the Music (Y:\) drive in the ZARA AUTOMATION folder.

Set the fader control for the computer on the panel. When ready, click the Play button:

Once a template is loaded in a player, ZaraStudio will add audio files to it automatically so that there is always about 30 minutes of play time in the playlist.

NOTES:

• You do not need to add files to the list the template creates. Zara will keep adding to the list to ensure there is always at least 30 minutes of play time in it.
• Ensure the player is left to play in Normal (top-right of the player window). The template will already arrange for random play if that is needed.
• You can Delete tracks and if you do ZaraStudio will replace them by adding others to the end of the playlist to build it back to about 30 minutes. If you want to empty the Template from the Playlist so you can replace it with your own list, see below: Clearing a Template from the Playlist
• You can
  • Pause
  • or Stop
  • or Stop at the end of the track
  • or Jump to the next track
  • or use Talk over

For more information about these controls see Controls -- Control buttons

Tracks are selected following the pattern specified by the Template when it was made.

In the following image you can see how a player looks like after loading the template:

Deleting items in a playlist which is playing a Template only causes the Template to automatically replace the items with others.

To Clear a Template playlist so you can make up your own playlist, the simplest way is to click on the menu of the player then choose New.

A Template may have been set up to load automatically. This is done…

• Through an event. Templates can be loaded automatically using an event associated to a TPL file.

• Through a playlist. Inserting a TPL file in a playlist, will make the template load when the player reaches that item.