Stories are consisting of scenes which can contain more layouts. A new scene makes sense if you want to add another video or sound to your storyboard. (You can’t place multiple videos into a single scene). Within one scene a video plays continuously while you can change its size and position. You can change the layout at any given position by rolling over and then clicking the thin line above the timeline. Once you do so, the line splits into two parts: the one you’ve had already and the next one where you can place another image or text around your video. To check the result just drag the playhead before the breakpoint and hit play.
Please note: in edit the playhead does not jump to the next scene automatically, only the actual scene can played. If you want to see all the scenes stringed together please press the preview button.
The built-in search tool is perfect when you need a couple of more images for a story but basically we recommend our browser plugin to collect and store images, videos and text. Click the download plugin link and install it into your browser (Firefox requires that you restart the browser). Please reload your editor tab after the installation so that the container of incoming items appears in the bottom-right corner. The collect button appears (again bottom-right) on every page you’ll visit in future unless you deactivate the plugin in your browser.
Every time you click (or use the “Alt+C” hotkey) on the plugin on any of the pages you’re on the site gets sensitive and all you have to do is to click on the item you want to re-use in your story. You’ll see it sliding to the little container at the bottom and once you go back to the editor the content is waiting for you in your “incoming” box. Just click the items here and they’ll appear on the current scene.
You can delete any content from the scene by simply replacing it. (Entire scenes can be deleted of course).
If you double-click in an empty text field you can add your own text. You can also use the “custom text” button from the search panel tip’s block to add your own text.
If a collected text is longer (which is quite often the case) than the current layout is able to show, you need to roll over it and click on the scissor. Select the text you want to keep and hit the “cut text” button.
When rolling over an image on the scene you’ll see controls (“+/-”) to zoom the picture. In addition, you can slide the image by dragging it in order to choose the part that tells the story best.
You can cut away the parts of a scene you won’t need by dragging the green playhead to the desired position, rolling over the scissors on the left or right and clicking on the appropriate “trim” button. Once trimmed, a small red arrow appears before or behind the timeline, displaying that the media is longer then the timeline itself. That arrow can be clicked to get back to the original video duration.
The segments (mustaches) above the timeline are representing layout lengths. The icons show the grid type. Clicking the icon you can choose from a variety of layouts and you can even flip them both vertically and horizontally with the help of the little red arrows.
You can set the cover image of your story. Just hit the “set cover” button at the bottom of the editor and click an image either in the search module or in your incoming box. The default cover is taken automatically from the first video or image you’re using. That is what you can replace any time.
Once ready to share your work, you can watch the entire story with all the scenes you’ve created by clicking “preview”. This how your audience is gonna see it! After clicking “publish” we copy a snapshot of your story our powerful servers so that millions of viewers can watch it at the same time. You get the link to your story and the embed code that contains the requested size and dimensions of the Soo Meta Player.
Please note: refreshing existing stories needs 2 minutes to be visible across the globe.