Renaming published Drop Zones in Apple Motion-made tools for Final Cut Pro

Sometimes when designing titles, effects, transitions or generators for Final Cut Pro in Motion, it is helpful to include a Drop Zone. These are used are parameters that the editor can set in Final Cut so that they can choose a piece of media in the current library to be featured in the plugin.

A catch is that by default, Motion names these drop zones as ‘Drop Zone’ and there is no way in Motion to rename them. This means that as an editing tool designer, you can’t give them names such as ‘Contestant No. 1’ or ‘Birthday Image’ – names that would make your templates that much easier to use in Final Cut Pro.

Motion names each drop zone after the drop zone graphic built into Final Cut. The name is assigned to its layer too. When a drop zone is created (either using a Motion command or by duplicating an existing drop zone), a unique layer name is created too. That layer name is used when the drop zone is shown in Final Cut.

The trick is to unpublish the drop zone image, rename its layer and then publish the drop zone image again. The layer name won’t appear in the template’s published parameters list, but it will appear in Final Cut.

1. Add a drop zone to your Motion template using the Object:New Drop Zone command
2. Select its layer.
3. In the Inspector, go to the Image tab, in the Source Media row, click the shortcut menu button. From the shortcut menu, choose Unpublish.
   
4. Double-click the name of the layer in the Project Pane and rename it by typing a new name and pressing the Return key.
   
5. In the Inspector, again click the shortcut menu button and choose Publish.
   
6. Save your template. In Final Cut Pro, when the editor selects your template and looks at the Published Parameters tab in the Final Cut Inspector,  your drop zone parameter will have the name you chose.