Please explain enabling and disabling of show

[Greg.Ca]

As a newbie I have some beginner questions. In the next few days to next few weeks our family will complete various sections of our show. As it turns out our awnings of 6 sections and six colors have already been installed and we are currently testing them. (All working good).

When playing just a sequence in the sequence editor with our network connected, my wife announced, 'Greg, some lights and going off outside!! I was surprised as the show was currrently disabled and no 'shows' were playing howeever the lights were still going on and off. Not sure what to think? I was only looking at the sequence that had been created but our hardware was all connected and sure enough, the lights outside (awnings) were all 'playing'.

Is this normal? Should I have pulled out the USB connection to prevent the lights from illuminating? What can I do to prevent the outside lights from working when editing or viewing any sequence in the sequence editor?

On another question, our first 'show' was a quick test of the awnings and we allowed for the show to turn on automatically but it seems we have to manually 'enable' the show each night to run. How can 'enabling' the show each night be automatic? What am I NOT doing correctly to automatically enable the show every night? --Greg--

[Guest wbottomley]

The sequence editor will control the lights if a show is not enabled.

Here's the help file to get the rest of the answers.

http://www.lightorama.com/downloads/3.1.2/help/

[Brian Mitchell]

In the sequencer, under the Play menu, make sure "Control Lights" is NOT checked.

[Greg.Ca]

Thank you Brian. Easy answer!! Now how do I get the show to automatically be enabled each evening?

[Caleb Linburg]

The easiest way to get the show to automatically enable is to use the "simple show builder" and creat a schedule for the time you would like, than you just always leave the show enabled.

[TitusCarnathan]

On the Lor control panel (in your taskbar) make sure launch at startup is checked and enable schedule then you could use simple show builder or for more features you can use the show editor and schedule editor

[aurickle]

The Show Editor is what you use to tell LOR what order to play all your songs in. The Schedule Editor tells LOR what times of the day during which it should play which show(s). Enable/Disable Schedule controls whether the scheduled show will play or not. When Enabled, the schedule will run. When Disabled, your channels are controlled by the Sequence Editor instead and the show schedule is ignored.

In the Show Editor, most of what you have created will go in the Musical tab. In fact, you can do an entire show using only that tab; you don't actually need any of the others. Everything in the Musical tab will loop repeatedly for the duration of your show. You can tell it to play the sequences in order or to shuffle them.

Do NOT use the Background tab unless you have channels that are not going to be in use for any of your songs. (An unlikely scenario.)

The Startup tab is a sequence (or series of them) that plays when the show first turns on. It will not play again until the next time you start the show -- such as the following night.

The Animation tab can be ignored unless you have some special needs -- which is unlikely.

Interactive can also be ignored unless you have stuff being triggered by the audience. Again, this is unlikely.

Shutdown is like Startup except it plays at the very end of the show.

Unless you've created special sequences to start the show and end it, you'll put everything in the Musical tab. Then you'll simply save the show.

Now you open the Schedule Editor. What I do is go to the weekly view and right-click anywhere. I then set a start time for my show, an end time and tell it to run every day of the week (the default setting). I select the show I just saved from the Show Editor and save the schedule.

If you want your lights to stay on all night but not be playing music past a certain time you can do this. Simply create a second show in the Show Editor with a single Animation sequence of one minute. (You might have that sequence be a minute of everything on. Or you might have subtle effects here and there.) Now save this show as "Overnight" or whatever. In this case you would use the Schedule Editor to set one show from dusk to midnight (or whenever you wish to switch) and the other show from midnight to dawn. You just can't have two shows running at the same time, but the can be set for the second to start the instant the first one ends.

Now all that's left is to run the Verifier to make sure there are no problems. Then you simply wait until the day you want your show to start. On that day, click on "Enable Schedule". Your show will start that night at the scheduled time. At the end of the season, click on "Disable Schedule". This is why I don't worry about scheduling specific days for the show. Even though my schedule has been telling LOR to run my show for the last several days it hasn't done so because the schedule is currently disabled. I'll enable it tomorrow before leaving for Thanksgiving dinner with the family, and will come home to holiday lights.

[halfast]

Aurickle, a very succinct and helpful explanation. Thanks.