Did I mess up?

[Al Saunders]

Hey Guys,

I know I'm late to the S5/S6 party but I'm getting ready to convert from good ole S4 to S6 pretty soon. Before doing so I am making some changes to controllers. I'm replacing one 16 channel controller with two 4 channel controllers due to distance between the elements. I was only using 7 channels of the 16 channel controller. One of the 4 channel controllers will have the same unit id that the 16 channel controller did but the other 4 channel will have a new unit id. I felt the easiest thing to do was to add a 4 channel devise above the 16 channel devise in the grid and then add a 4 channel devise below the 16 channel devise. I copied channels 1-3 from the 16 channel controller to the 4 channel controller with the same unit id and then copied channels 4-7 of 16 channel controller to channels 1-4 of new 4 channel controller. What I did and the reason for my question/post is after making these changes I deleted the 16 channel devise and saved the channel config. After doing so something went off in the back of my head from years ago hearing either one of you guys or the Great Chuck Smith say "NEVER DELETE A DEVICE or GROUP of channels" but I don't remember what it was. Either way, its deleted in the channel config and on 2 of my sequences so far. So did I mess up the "Behind the scene" workings in the software by deleting? 

I'm trying to get the sequences updated and just updated the channels in my Visualizer in preparation for the S6 conversion. Also, in Visualizer it doesn't know or care what channel devise it is does it? Do I have to delete the 16 channel devise and add the two new 4 channel devises? I hope not. :) 

All three of these controllers are regular A/C channel devises, no RGB/Pixel stuff. Thar's fine as is. 

Anyway, thanks for reading this and would love some input. 

Have a blessed afternoon/evening and stay safe.

Thanks,

Al 

[Box on Rails]

I would say never delete anything until you create a copy of the preview/visualizer you want to edit and then make all your changes in the copied file, That way if a mistake is made you can always start fresh with a another copy of the original file. When you make the move to S6 the conversion process from S4 Visualizer to S6 Previews will possibly create a number of questions. you should start asap to convert to S6 so you have a lot of time to learn the new program before the show season starts. Don't worry. We're here to help. also this YouTube channel has a lot of great videos on S5/S6 . https://www.youtube.com/@LuminousHarmony 

[Mr. P]

In earlier versions of LOR, S1-S4, it was always recommended to never delete controllers and always add to the bottom. All programming was done in the sequencer and some controllers have thousands of channels associated with them so when you deleted those channels all the channels below may not move up correctly and throw your sequence out of whack. Not sure if this still holds true for S6 as you add and delete props.

[Al Saunders]

Thanks for the replies and info. I think the easiest thing for me to do in preparation for the conversion is to manually go into each sequence that I'm keeping and make the changes I did already to 2 of my sequences and save instead of importing the new channel config. This way everything else will stay in position and I'm just copying and pasting 7 rows and adding the new 4 channel controllers and deleting that one 16 channel controller. Going forward the new channel config will be the layout. 

Visualizer question: do I need to add the 2 new 4 channel A/C controllers and delete the previous unit id controller? As stated above, the one 4 channel controller has the same unit id that the 16 channel one did. I'm thinking I don't need to remove the 16 to add the 4 channel with the same unit id. Any thoughts? Developer Mike, are you around? 😁

As always, I appreciate the help! 👍

Al

[Box on Rails]

20 hours ago, Al Saunders said:

 

Visualizer question: do I need to add the 2 new 4 channel A/C controllers and delete the previous unit id controller?

what I would suggest is to add the 2 new 4 channel A/C controllers after you make the conversion to S6 in the new preview created in the transfer. Other wise in S4 just add the 2 new 4 channel A/C controllers and leave the 16 channel in the visualizer.

[James Shelby]

I would be very careful converting from S4 to S5/S6. Microsoft sort rules applied at the time of conversion has killed any idea I had of moving up in software. All the sort rules need to be perfect in your old S4 program names and numbering. If I had numbered a prop 01,02,03 and a second of the same prop 1,2,3 and a third of the same prop space1, space2 or space3 the sort rules just blew up everything moving parts of one prop to another. They will tell you it's easy to correct these minor problems in S5/S6 when it shows up in the conversion but the reality is with an old, heavily modified, hundreds of channels display many people have had to rewrite their programs. I haven't given up but it has taken me over a year to create a naming and numbering scheme that works with Excel sort.   

[Al Saunders]

Hi James,

Thanks for the heads up. Since "Life" has gotten in the way I'm still on S4 and haven't worked on sequencing for a long time. I might have to wait AGAIN until next year to upgrade to S6 since its now May. Not sure though. But I do appreciate your input and will keep that in mind. 

Have a great day and stay safe.

Thanks,

Al

[k6ccc]

Al,  You can get a start on your S6 conversion by creating your preview.  Make sure S6 imports your sequences properly - even if you never touch the sequencing in S6 (yet).  Getting the preview working is one of the largest hurdles to moving to S6.  Then if you want, you can play with the S6 features, even if you never intend to use those "playing" sequences.

Note that when you import your S4 sequences into S6, the original S4 sequences are totally un-modified.  So no matter what changes you make in S6, the S4 sequences will still be fine.  Also, you can run your show on a computer running S6 even if every single sequence was created / edited in S4.

 

Edited May 8, 2023 by k6ccc

[Orville]

On 2/17/2023 at 11:12 AM, Al Saunders said:

Thanks for the replies and info. I think the easiest thing for me to do in preparation for the conversion is to manually go into each sequence that I'm keeping and make the changes I did already to 2 of my sequences and save instead of importing the new channel config. This way everything else will stay in position and I'm just copying and pasting 7 rows and adding the new 4 channel controllers and deleting that one 16 channel controller. Going forward the new channel config will be the layout. 

Visualizer question: do I need to add the 2 new 4 channel A/C controllers and delete the previous unit id controller? As stated above, the one 4 channel controller has the same unit id that the 16 channel one did. I'm thinking I don't need to remove the 16 to add the 4 channel with the same unit id. Any thoughts? Developer Mike, are you around? 😁

As always, I appreciate the help! 👍

Al

I'm not using the newest versions, but this is how I have always done it, just as you describe, then after all the changes are made I *DO* import the new channel config, as I have had things I may have missed and when the new channel config got imported into the "changed" sequences, some things were not always correct, then I use UNDO, correct those issue, save theose changes, then I re-import the channel config until everything lines up and woks as I need it too.

That way, the next update using the new channel config will work as planned without any hiccups or surprises along the way.

It would have been nice if you could just delete, reconfigure and the new channel config import would make those changes, but it just doesn't work like that, don't know about the latest versions, but I'd expect the channel config import would work pretty much the same as it always has.

 

[Don]

2 hours ago, Orville said:

I'm not using the newest versions,

2 hours ago, Orville said:

but I'd expect the channel config import would work pretty much the same as it always has.

There is no Channel Config Import in new versions. It's all Preview based.

 

[Don]

20 hours ago, k6ccc said:

Al,  You can get a start on your S6 conversion by creating your preview.

Correct, Al. It honestly doesn't take long to convert.

Then once you do you build your Grid Preview to sort the channels in the order you want.

[Orville]

Thank you, Don.  I wasn't aware of that.  Noted for future reference.

 

But that is a bummer to me, as I use the Channel Config for everything in the older version I'm using, and had figured the newer versions would have had something close it.  Sad to see it doesn't as that's how I prefer to set things up, I just find it easier and less complicated than setting up those previews, which I could never get to work correctly, if at all, usually not at all.   And is why I'm still on 4.4.16 version.

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Orville

[Don]

21 minutes ago, Orville said:

Thank you, Don.  I wasn't aware of that.  Noted for future reference.

But that is a bummer to me, as I use the Channel Config for everything in the older version I'm using, and had figured the newer versions would have had something close it.  Sad to see it doesn't as that's how I prefer to set things up, I just find it easier and less complicated than setting up those previews, which I could never get to work correctly, if at all, usually not at all.   And is why I'm still on 4.4.16 version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Sqylx2g44&list=PL5dKqcprhEGwHITXbIo2uQFouiGQsxMs7 If that video doesn't explain it to you, then I don't know what to tell you. 

If you don't use the current versions, maybe don't comment on threads about them? Just a thought.

[Al Saunders]

On 5/9/2023 at 12:06 PM, Don said:

Correct, Al. It honestly doesn't take long to convert.

Then once you do you build your Grid Preview to sort the channels in the order you want.

Hi Don. Thanks for the great info. I watched the video and will re-watch it I'm sure. LOL 

Question. Since my topic is talking about "splitting" a current controller into 2 controllers, one with the same current unit id number and a new unit id, shouldn't I update my Visualizer file to import to S6 to create my preview? I know that's one way to create a preview from previous documentation I have from the S5 release. And am I correct in thinking I need to make the changes to my current S4 sequences so that when I import them into the new S6 sequencer there won't be errors that pop up?  

Sorry if this is dumb/simple question. I appreciate any help given. 

Have a great afternoon and stay safe.

Thanks,

Al

[k6ccc]

Either way should work.  If it were me, I would go ahead and update your Visualization file in S4 because that is what you are familiar with.  In the long run, it likely would be easier to make the change after importing the existing Visualization file and changing the Preview.  Managing previews in S5 & S6 has become really easy as compared to dealing with configurations in S4, but since that is going to be new ground, that is the reason I somewhat suggest making your change in Visualizer, and then importing into S6 Preview Editor