Change of theme of a motion 5 template

I make use of the "theme" / Thema substring when I store a M5 template to get templates more structured within a folder eg. Soccer. The thing is that these "themes" can only be changed with M5 or is there a solution for a user to change the theme or lets call it subfolder structure ? Not in front of my but do wonder whether there is a way without having to manipulate files or requesting to change via M5

Pretty easy. Open the Effects, Transitions, Titles or Generators folder in the Finder.
The "Theme" name is just the name of a folder thereof. Just drag the whole effect (say) folder from one theme to another, with FCP X not running (even create new ones, it's fine); when you start again you will see the new organization.

… no? Th theme is 'baked' into the .motn file.
Luckily, that is xml, a bit like html… readable for humans

Following advice only for the brave hearted:
before:



Open the .motn file with e.g. TextWrangler*



Search for 'theme'…
Change description to your needs…

After:




* btw: Using here TextWrangler under macOS-HS… 

I stand corrected. I was thinking of "category", not "theme".

Thanks, Karsten, for setting things straight.

HI Karsten,

another thank you. Lets see whether Apple will offer the option to change that in the new version ) But I doubt. Not aware of a tool to make that more user friendly but at least possible. Tx again.

Schnurr wrote: … Lets see whether Apple will offer the option to change that in the new version ;….

Most doubtful … since 10_3, the 'split' of effects and titles to diff. locations in the UI, 'Themes' are a bit …orphaned …

yes, agree but the only change to create a kind of subfolder mechanism are themes. Otherwise the main folder list gets to long at least in my situation. hmm Dec is coming....

I used to use Themes daily. All my titles, generators, transitions custom made for each individual TV show I edited would all be there one ONE SINGLE PLACE.

But they killed it off and I have to jump around from one side of the GUI to the opposite side looking for all that stuff.

And so why do "Themes" even exist inside Motion? Great feature killed off for no good reason... (sigh)

killed it off?
No the themes / theme are still there in M5 and fcpx.
The point I make is that a user can't change the theme name easily e.g. right click on it etc and need to change the XML code as Karsten explained. That is a really poor UI behaviour from Apple or fcpx because it is as well the only way to create a kind of order structure within a "folder" like in my case Fussball in case a user wants to avoid a big list of top level elements ...

I doubt that Apple will change that and I am tired to write an enhancement request because even when you write a comment to apple/feedback you don't event get a standard "thank you" email. That is custom service with its poorest level.