You can create and manage Viz Mosart overlay graphics with the Named Overlays Editor.

Overview

The Named Overlays Editor interface consists of the following areas:

• Toolbar (top): the search field, three filter dropdowns (handler, out mode, provider), a count of the overlays currently listed, the sort dropdown, the active studio, the Mosart server indicator, and the help button. Where authentication is enabled, the signed-in user's account icon sits at the far right. The active studio is a plain label on a single-studio installation and a dropdown when several studios are configured. Named overlays live on each studio's own Mosart server, so picking another studio reloads the editor and shows that studio's overlays.

• Sidebar (left): Pilot Edge opens the graphics plugin panel, Custom creates an overlay by hand, and below the separator Import XML and Export XML. In a redundancy setup an additional Sync to backup server button appears.

• Provider panel (left, resizable): embeds the Viz Pilot Edge plugin as a panel. The panel width can be resized by dragging the edge.

• Overlay table (center): one row per overlay, with sortable columns. Before any overlays exist it shows No overlays added yet.

Server Indicator

At the right of the toolbar, a status dot and label show the Mosart server the editor is working against. The label is the server's own name as reported by Viz Mosart, falling back to Main when no name is available. The dot distinguishes an active server from an idle one and from a server that cannot be reached, and hovering it shows the server version. In a redundancy setup a second label appears for the backup server.

Help

The Help button, marked with a question mark at the right of the toolbar, opens a menu with three entries:

• About: Application version and build information.

• Keyboard Shortcuts: Keyboard shortcut reference, also listed below.

• Help: Introduction to named overlays, with a link to Named Overlay Graphics in the Viz Mosart Administrator Guide.

Session and Sign-in

This applies only where authentication (OIDC) is enabled for Mosart Web Apps. With authentication off, the editor never asks you to sign in.

The editor signs you out after a period without activity. In earlier versions an editor left open stayed signed in for as long as the page was open, because its own background traffic kept the session alive. That background traffic no longer counts as activity, so an editor abandoned on a shared newsroom machine now expires as it should.

Working in the editor keeps the session alive: typing, clicking, scrolling and moving the pointer all count. The embedded Viz Pilot Edge panel is a separate frame, so the editor cannot see what you do inside it. Having the panel in focus stands in for activity for five minutes after your last action in the editor, and no longer, while a graphic sent back from the plugin counts as activity in full. A long spell spent only inside the panel can therefore still reach the countdown, so click in the editor now and then, or answer the countdown dialog, to hold the session.

Ninety seconds before the session would end, a dialog headed You will be logged out soon counts down and offers Continue session and Log out now. If the countdown runs out you get Session timeout! and a Login button.

The Overlay Table

Each overlay occupies one row. The columns are:

The Slug, Description, Handler, Out on, In and Duration columns can be sorted by clicking the column header, which is often quicker than the sort dropdown when you are looking for one particular overlay. In and Duration sort numerically.

Hovering a row reveals three buttons:

• Edit: opens the Edit overlay dialog.

• Open graphic: sends the overlay back to the Pilot Edge plugin for re-editing. It is enabled when the overlay carries a provider element reference, or when it has a graphics ID and a Pilot Edge plugin is configured; otherwise it is greyed out.

• Delete: deletes the overlay, after confirmation.

Adding Overlays

There are two ways to add overlay graphics to the editor, plus XML import.

From Viz Pilot Edge

1. Click the Pilot Edge button in the sidebar. The Pilot Edge plugin opens in the provider panel.

2. Browse or search for a graphics template in the Pilot Edge interface.

3. Select a template and send it from the Pilot Edge plugin. If an overlay already uses that slug, the dialog does not open: a warning says the overlay already exists, and the editor selects and scrolls to the existing row so you can see which one owns the name. Use Open graphic on that row to re-edit its graphic instead.

4. The editor receives the graphic data and opens the overlay dialog with fields already filled in from the template, including the slug, description, graphics ID, MOS ID, handler name, In, Duration and Graphics Out On.

5. Review and adjust the properties as needed, then confirm.

Custom Overlays

1. Click the Custom button in the sidebar, or press N. The Add custom overlay dialog opens.

2. Fill in the two required fields, which are marked with an asterisk:

   • Slug: the unique name that templates and control commands use to recall this overlay, for example LOWERTHIRD. It must be unique across all overlays.

   • Graphics ID: the graphic's ID in the graphics system, for example the Pilot element ID.

3. Optionally complete the rest of the dialog, which is organized into General (Description and MOS ID), Integration & Timing (Handler Name, In, Duration and Graphics Out On), NCS Content, and Actions.

4. Click Add.

Every field has an information icon next to its label with a short description of what the field does.

Editing an Overlay

Double-click a row, or select it and press Enter, or click the Edit button that appears on hover. The Edit overlay dialog opens with the same sections as the add dialog. Click Save to apply your changes, or Cancel to discard them.

General

• Slug: the overlay name. It opens read-only, because templates and control commands refer to it. To change it, click the Rename button next to the field, type the new name and confirm in the Rename overlay step, which warns that templates and control commands still referring to the old name will no longer find this overlay and offers Keep a copy under the old name.

• Description: free text, shown in the table and in the Overlay Graphics Interface.

• Graphics ID: the graphic's ID in the graphics system.

• MOS ID: the MOS ID of the graphics device that plays this overlay.

Integration & Timing

• Handler Name: the destination handler that plays this graphic, typed as free text. The values Viz Mosart recognizes are CG, DSK, PKSPLIT, LAYOUT, MIXER, VSAR, and CONTENT1 to CONTENT4. An overlay saved with the field empty is stored with CG.

• In: the delay in frames from trigger until the graphic is taken. The default is 0, meaning no delay.

• Duration: the number of frames the graphic stays on air, used when Graphics Out On is set to Timecode. The default is 125 frames.

• Graphics Out On: when the graphic is taken off air. Nothing is selected by default, and an overlay saved without a choice is stored as Timecode, so it goes out after Duration. Choose one of:

  • Timecode: taken out after the configured Duration.

  • Open End: stays on air until something else takes it out.

  • Manual: taken out manually by the operator.

  • Background End: taken out when the background item ends. The Out on column of the table shows this mode as Item end.

  • Story End: taken out when the story ends.

Re-editing the Graphic Only

To change the graphic rather than its overlay settings, use Open graphic on the row. The Pilot Edge provider panel opens, if it is not already open, with the graphic loaded for editing. Make your changes in the Pilot Edge interface and send the graphic back, and the overlay is updated with the new graphic data.

Managing Overlays

Search

Use the search field in the toolbar to filter overlays by text. The search matches the overlay name (slug), description, handler name, graphics ID, MOS ID, and template type. Press Ctrl+K, or Command+K on macOS, to focus the search field.

Filter

Three filter dropdowns narrow the table. Each one offers only the values actually used by your existing overlays, so the choices reflect your own overlay set rather than every value the editor supports:

• All Handlers: filter by handler name.

• All Out Modes: filter by the Graphics Out On mode.

• All Providers: filter by where the overlay came from, either Pilot Edge or Custom.

The overlay count next to the filters shows how many overlays are listed, so you can see at a glance how much a filter has narrowed the table.

Sort

Click any sortable column header to sort by that column. The sort dropdown in the toolbar offers the same orderings by name:

• Newest first (default): overlays appear in the order they were added, newest at the top.

• Name (A-Z): alphabetical order by slug.

• Handler: grouped by handler name, then alphabetical by slug.

• Provider: grouped by provider, then alphabetical by slug.

Delete

To delete an overlay, click the Delete button on the row, or select the row and press Delete. A Delete overlay dialog asks you to confirm, naming the overlay, for example Are you sure you want to delete LOWERTHIRD?

NamedCG Actions

The Actions section of the overlay dialog controls what Mosart does to other on-air graphics when this overlay is taken. Choose one of three options:

With Take out selected, choose which graphic to remove:

Whatever you choose is shown in the Action column of the table, so you can see at a glance which overlays clear or take out other graphics.

NCS Content Placeholders

The NCS Content section of the overlay dialog adds placeholders that resolve from the newsroom system at runtime, so a single overlay can carry values from whichever story or item it is played in.

Placeholders are switches, grouped by scope. Turn on the ones you want the overlay to carry:

Each group also has a Custom XPath field with an Add custom placeholder button, for pulling a value the standard placeholders do not cover. Enter the XPath expression and add it to the group.

XML Import and Export

Export

To export the overlays as an XML file:

1. Click the Export XML button in the sidebar, below the separator.

2. A file named NamedOverlayGraphics.xml is downloaded to your computer.

The exported file contains the overlays the table is currently showing, with their properties, MOS XML content and configured actions. Export writes only the listed rows, so clear the search field and the three filters first when you want the whole set. Use the file for backup, for migration between environments, or to import into another instance of the Named Overlays Editor.

Import

To import overlays from an XML file:

1. Click the Import XML button in the sidebar.

2. Select an XML file from your computer.

3. If the file contains overlays whose slugs already exist in the editor, a confirmation dialog lists the duplicates and offers Skip Duplicates, which keeps the existing overlays, or Replace Duplicates, which overwrites them with the imported versions. Cancel abandons the import.

4. A notification summarizes how many overlays were added, skipped, or replaced.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Select Keyboard Shortcuts from the help menu in the toolbar to view this list in the editor.