When an element starts: At a set time, With previous, After previous

Every element answers two separate questions: when does it start and how long does it last. This article covers the first one. You set it in the Inspector on the right, under Starts.

At a set time

The element goes on air at the moment you type, counted from the start of its story, not from the start of the show, and not from the element above it. 00:00 means it goes on air together with its story.

This is the only start mode where you type a number. In the other two the time is a result, so the field is not editable.

Best for: most elements. A lower third that comes up four seconds into the item, a bug that opens with the block.

With previous

The element goes on air at the same instant as the element above it, and follows it if that one moves.

This is not the same as typing 00:00. Typing a time pins the element to the clock; With previous ties it to its neighbour, so re-timing the element above re-times this one too.

Best for: things that must appear together, such as a lower third and a sponsor bug entering as one.

After previous

The element goes on air when the element above it comes off. The two are concatenated: the image first, then the video.

Best for: a sequence inside one story where each piece follows the one before it.

Choosing what it follows

For With previous and After previous you also choose the anchor:

• The row above: whatever sits directly above it, so moving rows moves the air.
• Everything above: it waits for the screen to clear, meaning the last of them to finish.

Order starts to matter

Elements inside a story are normally placed in parallel on the story's clock, so the list order is presentation only. The moment an element uses With previous or After previous, "the previous" means the row above it, so dragging a row changes when things go on air. The rundown warns you on the row when that is the case.

Two cases that fall back

An element cannot always be honoured as configured. In these cases it airs at its own time instead, visible and unchanged, never silently dropped:

• It is the first element of the story. There is nothing above it to follow, so it goes on air with the story, at 00:00.
• The element above never ends inside the story. If the one above is set to hold until the story ends, there is no moment at which it finishes, so there is nothing to chain onto. The rundown flags it; change one of the two.

Legacy Manual elements

Rundowns built before this change may still contain elements marked Manual. They fire on the operator's cue rather than on the clock, they are counted but given no place on the timeline, and they keep working. Manual is no longer offered when you configure a new element. All three start modes answer "at which second", and waiting for a person is a different question, handled by Manual mode in the control bar.