Creating a Button Template is the first step you'll take when conducting video analysis with Nacsport. The Button Template is a completely blank slate, adaptable to any sport or game situation, allowing you to add any and all parameters that you want to analyse. Luckily, template creation in Nacsport is easy and intuitive. In this video, learn how to use the template creation tool. Learn the basics of Categories and Descriptors, manual buttons, exclusions, and much more...
The video below is divided into chapters for you to easily review and find the information you need quickly. Hover over the timeline play head at the bottom of the video and you’ll be able to see and jump between the chapters too.
10 Basic tips for your first button template
This is the first tip and maybe the most important one! A good template is the key to a good analysis. So list down your needs and draw your template with a pencil before creating it in the software.
When you are building your templates in Nacsport, we recommend making a copy of your template file, renaming it to have v2,v3 etc at the end of the name, then opening that new version to make changes on. That way, you can always roll back if needed!
Different colours for buttons help with easy identification. It is usual to choose different colours to distinguish teams or any other buttons under the same criteria. Different button shapes ease distinction between actions during registering and you can change sizes to make things fit and flow better together too.
Group buttons visually with inactive buttons. For instance, one button for the attacking categories, another one for the defensive ones, and an inactive button for players’ names. You can also change the colour of these to add contrast with the background or template buttons.
If you usually register actions with the same click sequence, it will be much more efficient for you to place them in an organised position. For example, if you click like this: "action + player + good or bad + area", it is logical to place buttons in this order to make registering easier.
If you want to locate your buttons on the fly, replace the names of the buttons with images. This is commonly used with players' faces.
Regular actions can be assigned a hotkey. This is a useful way to save some clicks. You have up to 173 different combinations but just a couple of them can be enough for easier registering.
The grid, along with the options "Adjust button to line" and "Align selected buttons with the reference button" will give you a more ordered template.
Do you want to know the possession of your team? Then use the exclusion options on your buttons: "Possession A" and "Possession B". With this option, as one button is registered, the other one stops registering automatically. Remember that you need to assign both buttons as manual mode.
You can place buttons in different layers. Use the options “Send to front/back” after right clicking or set the specific layer number in the button properties. This is useful when you do not have much space and buttons are overlaid.