Participatory Culture Foundation

In July 3rd Amara Update, Darren Bridenbeck wrote: "...We reverted the 32-char, 4-line display back to what it was before. ..."
That was a great revert: in fact, this software-imposed 32-char, 4-line display had been retroactively mangling heaps of previously made subtitles.
Now Amara developers have gone one step further: they have finally enabled line breaks, which enable subtitlers to create real multi-line subtitles, which they - and not a software ukase - can control.

This is a very important progress. Take e.g. the crucial issue raised by Gustavo Forster in Multiple texts at the same time on subtitle:

Sometimes, the person on the video is speaking while there's text appearing on the video at the same time. We should be able to add multiple separated texts at the same time... At least I didn't find that option...

Now it is possible to do this: the text on the video can be copied within brackets on one line, and the transcript of what the person says can be added on another line, separated by a line break from the former.

Other case: multi-line subtitles imported together with the video from YouTube were formerly rendered (with the exception of the fortunately short-lived imposition of the disastrous 32-character limit) as wrapping single-line in Amara. Now they import correctly, including their line breaks, which can also be restored in formerly imported subtitles.

Several people had been asking for this possibility to use line breaks for almost a year now. So Amara's choice to make this possible is not just a technical, formal change: it's recognizing subtitlers' rights and competence in deciding how their work appears.

Thank you, Amara developers.

Hi Verone,

Unfortunately, no. Let's hope they soon restore this possibility. Actually, is there perhaps a connection with this new enabling of line breaks?  Maybe the software could not preserve the line breaks when processing a copy-pasted transcript?

But that would be an irrelevant problem: as the produced subtitles would still have to be sync'd, people might as well re-add possibly lost line breaks as they sync. Far less of a headache than restoring the accents that get deleted in the upload process.

Good idea: let's start a specific thread for that. Will you? I tend to be too long-winded.

Then if developers nevertheless miss it, the About Participatory Culture Foundation page gives the e-mail address of several of them, so we could write them to draw their attention to the post - or directly to the issue.

Hi Huy,
Posting here the reply I sent you via Amara messaging when this forum was not accessible:
Line breaks can be created as with any text editor, by holding Shift down and pressing Enter.

Hi Safetex
Line breaks are created in the traditional Amara editor (1) with just Shift (majuscule) + Enter, no "down".
I hope this works for you too.

 

(1) I haven't tried in the new editor yet, because I've only used it for syncing

 Apologies, Safetex: when I replied yesterday, I hadn't seen CC's What happened to all the LINE BREAKS within subtitles? They're all gone now. Does it have to do with the upgrade?  topic - nor noticed the issue with (re)introducing line breaks in existing subs s/he describes. Can we perhaps move further discussion of this present line break issues to CC's topic?

Thanks,

Claude