New S2 Release: Version 2.1.2

[bob]

Upgrade version 2.1.2 of the S2 Software Suite has been released, and can be downloaded from:

http://lightorama.com/downloads/LORUpgrade-2.1.2.exe

This is only an upgrade.
You must have a valid version of LOR I or LOR II software installed on your PC to install the software. Also, make sure that you have completed the install of the LOR software by running the LOR Control Panel or LOR Sequence Editor at least once after you install your production copy of the software.

Help Files.
The installer will automatically install help files. However, they are also available for download individually, in case you want to see them before upgrading. They are available in both Microsoft Help File format, and PDF format:

Microsoft Help File format:

http://lightorama.com/downloads/LORHelp-2.1.2.chm

PDF format:

http://lightorama.com/downloads/LORHelp-2.1.2.pdf

Changes.
The following changes were made in this version of the software (please see the help file's "What's New" page for more details):

• Licensing. This version of the software will require a registered license starting in July 2009. Until that time, users are assumed to have an "Advanced" license, which is the highest possible level. NOTE: If you have already purchased Light-O-Rama software, or purchase it before we start selling versions that require licensing, you are additionally entitled to a free "real" Advanced license, which will continue to work even after July 2009. Details on how to obtain your free license will be forthcoming, before registration is required.
• Custom Fade/Intensity Twinkles and Shimmers. In previous versions, twinkling or shimmering could only be done at full intensity (i.e. 100% brightness). This version supports twinkles and shimmers at other intensities, as well as twinkles and shimmers that fade up or fade down.
• Triggered Interactive Sequences. Some Light-O-Rama controllers can now act as input triggers. This allows sequences to be played on demand during a show - for example, your display may have a group of buttons that people can press, each of which could cause a different song to be played.
• Show Startup Options. Previous versions would always have a show starting immediately at its scheduled start time. You can now use an input trigger to start a show on demand at any point during its scheduled run time. Another similar new option is to have the show's background sequences start at the show's scheduled start time, but to have the remainder of the show start on demand.
• Windows Shell Commands. A Windows command can now be associated with a sequence, so that that Windows command is executed whenever the sequence is played. An example use for this would be for broadcasting the RDS ("Radio Data System") information for the song used for the sequence.
• DMX Intensity. LOR can now send any of 256 possible intensities (0 through 255) to a DMX device, rather than the old 101 possible intensities (0 through 100).
• The New and Open Dialog. The Sequence Editor's "New Sequence" and "Open Sequence" options have been replaced with a new dialog, which is presented whenever the Sequence Editor starts (although this behavior can be supressed), and whenever you ask to create a new sequence or open an existing one.
• Keep Lights On at End of Play. For most sections of a show, you can now specify whether the sequences in that section will turn their lights off or not at their end.
• Automatic Channel Settings for Newly Created Sequences. When creating a new sequence, you now have the option to automatically populate the channels as Light-O-Rama controllers, starting from unit 1 circuit 1 and going up to unit 1 circuit 16, then on to unit 2 circuit 1, and so forth.
• Events Can Be Dragged with Timings. When a timing is dragged in the sequence editor, to change the time that it is at, there is now an option so that any effect events that start or end at that timing will be dragged along with it.
• Change in Behavior for Mouse Switching Tracks. Switching to another track via the mouse in the Sequence Editor now causes the selected area in that track to be set to the cell that was clicked, even if that cell is within what used to be the selected area for that track. In particular, if a tool other than "Select" is enabled, that tool will be applied to the new selection, not the old one.
• Animation Sequences in Musical Section Cut Off at End of Show. If a show reaches its scheduled end time, and an animation sequence from the musical section of the show is currently playing, that sequence will be cut off abruptly. Note that this does not affect musical sequences from the musical section; they will still be allowed to end gracefully.
• "Max Units" in Hardware Utility Changed to "Max Unit ID". The box in the Hardware Utility which allows you to specify the units to search for has been changed to take a maximum unit ID rather than a maximum number of units. This change is due to some confusion with the fact that unit IDs are expressed as hexidecimal numbers, so (for example) entering "10" used to not check for unit ID 10, since unit ID 10 is actually the sixteenth possible unit ID.
  
• Bug Fix: If the Play Again button on the Standard Toolbar of the Sequence Editor were hit quickly two times in succession, an error message box would appear.
• Bug Fix: If the "turn a channel on and off" feature of the VU Wizard were used on only part of a musical sequence, it would correctly turn the channel on and off in that part, but would additionally turn everything in the channel past that part off.
• Bug Fix: In certain situations, when scrolling through tracks in the Sequence Editor, the track bar for some tracks would not be displayed, and instead part of the previously displayed channel grid would be displayed where the track bar should have been.
  
• Bug Fix: If certain Light-O-Rama entries in the Windows registry were mistakenly deleted (for example, by a third-party registry cleaning program), and a musical sequence were modified and saved, the name of the sequence's media file would not be saved along with it, and you would be unable to modify the sequence again to tell it the name of the media file. This effectively means that the musical sequence would be "transformed" into an animation sequence. This no longer occurs. Note, though, that Light-O-Rama still might not be able to play the sequence, as those registry entries tell it where to look for media files. But after the issue with registry is corrected, Light-O-Rama will now play those musical sequences as normal.
  
• Bug Fix: If a sequence had a channel that was set up to be a Light-O-Rama controller, but did not have its unit ID set, that sequence would not play in the Show Player.
  
• Bug Fix: Removing a channel that was in more than one track from a track would not cause the sequence to be marked as having unsaved changes.
  
• Bug Fix: If paste by cell is enabled, and effect events copied from a larger cell are pasted to a smaller cell, those events are "shrunk" to fit into the smaller cell. If such an event had to be shrunk to less than a centisecond in length, pasting would fail, giving an error message "Start time cannot be less than end time". Now, events shrunk to less than a centisecond are simply skipped when pasting.
  
• Bug Fix: When creating an SD card for an MP3 Director, a valid COM port is no longer required.
  
• Bug Fix: Some machines were having problems downloading standalone sequences to controllers. The reliability of downloading has now been improved.
• Bug Fix: When setting a unit ID via the Hardware Utility, the dropdown boxes allowing you to select a unit ID only show unit IDs from 01 up to the unit ID specified in the Hardware Utility's "Max Unit ID" setting. Previously, though, changing "Max Unit ID" would not change the values listed in the dropdown boxes, until the Hardware Utility was closed and then restarted. Now, the new values will be available immediately, without needing to close and restart.
  

[Steven]

Thank you! I've been waiting for this version! Call me daring, but I'm going to install it tonight on the show computer.

One small nit: In the 2.0 Sequence Editor Open dialog, you could right-click and select View -> Details, which would let me sort by "Last Modified" time so I could see which sequence was oldest and thus needed editing.

And a related problem, if you leave the new "New Sequence / Open Sequence" dialog open, then bring up an explorer window to see the last modified dates, then double-click on the file (in Windows Explorer) you get the error:

Can't show non-modal form when modal form is displayed

[beaker020]

If I understand the help file correctly, in order to take advantage of the custom shimmer and twinkle the controllers require a firmware upgrade? I see where new firmware has been posted but I see no reference to it here in the forums.

[Tim Fischer]

Cool stuff! Thanks!

And thanks for doing "RDS" as a "Shell command", that will really open up some new options! I would love to program my BetaBrite to show the name of the current sequence...

-Tim

[Texan78]

Tim Fischer wrote:

Cool stuff! Thanks!

And thanks for doing "RDS" as a "Shell command", that will really open up some new options! I would love to program my BetaBrite to show the name of the current sequence...

-Tim

I thought I had overlooked that until you said something. I am glad you noticed it because I was looking for it. Now time to figure out how to make it work..

The custom tool option for shimmers and twinkles are very cool. I can't wait to see that in action....

[bob]

If I understand the help file correctly, in order to take advantage of the custom shimmer and twinkle the controllers require a firmware upgrade? I see where new firmware has been posted but I see no reference to it here in the forums.

Yes, this will require a firmware upgrade. The latest version of firmware is distributed when you run the installer; when you click on the "Open" button of the Hardware Utility's firmware section, it should be present among the firmware files there.

If you send a custom shimmer or twinkle to a controller that doesn't yet have its firmware updated, it will be treated as a "regular" shimmer or twinkle, i.e. 100% intensity.

I believe that you also need a firmware upgrade if you want to take advantage of input triggers or DMX native, and I'm not sure if these are supported on all controller types. I'll ask Dan to post the firmware-related details here.

[RickMosher]

I'm getting the following error when running the installer:


Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version: 5.1.2600
Service Pack: 2.0


Attached files

[WayneKremer]

Bob, excellent job on the upgrade and especially the documentation behind it. Although I won't upgrade until just after Christmas, I very much look forward to it. Thanks!

[TitusCarnathan]

where are the interactive inputs on the controllers i have 2 ctb16pc

[LightORamaDan]

RickMosher wrote:

I'm getting the following error when running the installer:


Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version: 5.1.2600
Service Pack: 2.0

That error indicates that the download was not complete. We see that pretty often (more than I think we should!) with files stored on Yahoo.

re-download the installer file.

Dan

[RickMosher]

LightORamaDan wrote:

That error indicates that the download was not complete. We see that pretty often (more than I think we should!) with files stored on Yahoo.

re-download the installer file.

That was it. Thanks Dan!

[LightORamaDan]

T110431 wrote:

where are the interactive inputs on the controllers i have 2 ctb16pc

The CTB16PCs have two inputs each... We will post a diagram within 28 hours. We also have a little header that plugs into the 18 pin header that you can use to connect inputs. Will be in the store his week....

All released just a little late for this year but there were some bug fixes that I really wanted to get out and they were integrated with some new features so we have released it.


Edit: changed 24 hours to 28 hours.

[TitusCarnathan]

Thanks Dan :Dcan't wait to het this set up

one more question

can i update my frimware through the ELL's or do i have to direct connect the controllers to my pc

[bhays]

If this version is installed over 2.0.16 will it wreck current dmx sequences such that they have to be redone or how does that work?

[Dinosang]

Installed the new version with the RDS and it works great! Updates the RDS data just before the next song. I must say I am impressed!!

Upgrade was a snap! Great job guy's!

[bob]

If this version is installed over 2.0.16 will it wreck current dmx sequences such that they have to be redone or how does that work?

No, your current sequences will continue to operate the same way they always have, unless you explicitly change them to take advantage of this new feature.

The way it works is that there's a new effect tool - like "shimmer" or "fade up" or "set intensity" - called "DMX intensity". When you use this tool on a cell or cells, you can specify an intensity from 0 to 255, rather than 0 to 100.

Your existing sequences don't have any of these new "DMX intensity" effects, so they won't be affected.

[Texan78]

bob wrote:

The way it works is that there's a new effect tool - like "shimmer" or "fade up" or "set intensity" - called "DMX intensity". When you use this tool on a cell or cells, you can specify an intensity from 0 to 255, rather than 0 to 100.

Whoa, hold the sleigh ride.... I have seen the custom tool for the effects, but where do you see DMX intensity? I don't see this on my upgrade.

[bob]

It's not shown by default, because relatively few people have DMX devices, and we don't want confusion due to its accidental use. So, to enable it, go to Edit / Preferences / DMX Preferences, and mark the option as checked (it's something like "Enable DMX Editing").

You'll only have to do that once; your preference will be remembered from then on out (of course, you can also turn it off later if you want).

[Texan78]

bob wrote:

It's not shown by default, because relatively few people have DMX devices, and we don't want confusion due to its accidental use. So, to enable it, go to Edit / Preferences / DMX Preferences, and mark the option as checked (it's something like "Enable DMX Editing").

You'll only have to do that once; your preference will be remembered from then on out (of course, you can also turn it off later if you want).

Ah I knew it was hidden behind I secret door I wasn't looking at...LoL

Found it, and I see you have the option to edit and save it on the fly. Man this update came right in time because this included stuff that is making what I am doing right now a lot easier.

Now just need to be able to add video to animation and be able to loop it and I will be set....LoL

[Roman A. Gurule Jr.]

beaker020 wrote:

If I understand the help file correctly, in order to take advantage of the custom shimmer and twinkle the controllers require a firmware upgrade? I see where new firmware has been posted but I see no reference to it here in the forums.

I just upgraded my show computer, and tweaked the beginning of polar express to do a fade up shimmer. I have had no problems with it not working without a firmware upgrade.

Unless your talking about something different.

Roman