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S2 feature idea


taybrynn

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The idea would be:

- allow for a series of channels to be linked together temporarily for the puposes of making the sequencing of these channels easier / quicker

- the linking of channels could be stored into "sequencing groups", which you could load in a new group, but only one would be active at any one time.

- what I mean is: you could click relate items, say all your white items, say all your red channels, say all the white channels ... and then when you program any ONE channel in a related group, then it programs them all the same way.

- the purpose of this would be to take some sequence parts, then past that part into the appropriate "group" and then it would effectively past into all the channels linked into that group, via. a single paste operation.

The use of this could be: enable a programming group, say its called red, green, white ... and then paste in a part for red (into any red channel), then paste in a part for green (into any green channel), then paste in a part for white (into any white channel), then disable the programming group mode ... and resume sequencing and fine tuning.

But the nice thing would be that if your groups contained a bunch of items each, then you really would cut down on the amount of cut-and pasting required to sequence a bunch of parts.

Just an idea, thoughts?

A more simple implementation of this could be to have a column in the sequencer with simply 6 check-boxes in it ... and you could group channels using the 6 check boxes (up to 6 groups), and then if you checked a box at the top of the sequencer window, then any action performed on any channel in that group, would be applied to all channels in that same checkbox group. Yes, could be dangerous and destructive also ... but could also be very productive as well.

Then those 6 checkbox groups could be saved as part of the sequence and/or each track potentially.

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taybrynn wrote:

Yes, could be dangerous and destructive also ... but could also be very productive as well.
I don't know about you, but control Z is my friend.

What if your idea of channel groups could be enabled and disabled from a special row that gets assigned to a specific group, instead of a controller channel? The group would be enabled by placing ON events in the timings where you want the group to act in unison. That way you don't have to remember to turn the lock-step on/off, and it's visually clear where the feature is engaged.

I'd like to expand the group idea to allow defining an "envelope" for one or more channels. For instance, if I want to do a slow fade up or down on a spinning megatree, I could simply apply a fade event in one row that would scale the intensities of the events for everything in the group. It's a lot more labor intensive to do that using just the intensity and fade popups.

One more I think would be welcome to anyone using tracks: move/copy *multiple* channels.
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I would like to see 2 different UNDO functions.

On will undo any of the light functions and the other would only undo any channel moving.

That way you could move channels together to make your patterns or lights then just Undo the channels back to where they should be so you can keep a standard channel configuration on all sequences. That would make it easier to do channel updates like when you have to move a string of lights to another controller channel.

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the AL software had a feature where you could select a group of channels and then select "chase lights" or "fade" lights etc.. or "random lights" I wish we had that in S2..

I also like the idea of being able to put multiple channels into a Track... that would ROCK!
-Christopher

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  • 2 weeks later...

eldoradoboy wrote:

the AL software had a feature where you could select a group of channels and then select "chase lights" or "fade" lights etc.. or "random lights" I wish we had that in S2..

I also like the idea of being able to put multiple channels into a Track... that would ROCK!
-Christopher




You can already do most of what you are asking here... select a group of channels and hit the "U" key to set them all to fade up or press "D" for them all to fade down, or press "T" for them to do a random twinkle, but there's not an auto chase fill for S2 at this time, also... you can place as many channels in a track as you like
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  • 2 weeks later...

Similar to Taybrynn's idea... I'd love to see an expanded console utility with channel groupings. Right now turning on my tree line involves 9 sliders on 2 different controllers (5 on 1, 4 on the other)... It's a pain. The ability to save channel layouts with labels and groups, and have it load one "default" set when you open the utility would be insanely nice, IMO. Heck.. if we ever get a real C/C++ API for the protocol I'll write it myself. Probably never happen, however.

As for the wishlist.... I've never gotten so much as an acknowledgement to anything I've sent to that address. Feels like a waste of time. Not to mention that if you have an idea that no one else has thought of, it's unlikely to get implemented as they never see that other people support/want it.

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RiscIt wrote:

As for the wishlist.... I've never gotten so much as an acknowledgement to anything I've sent to that address. Feels like a waste of time. Not to mention that if you have an idea that no one else has thought of, it's unlikely to get implemented as they never see that other people support/want it.

I've never gotten a response either, but I don't view that as significant in any way either negative or positive. I expect the wish list exists for sending ideas in that Bob and the gang haven't thought of themselves, and also for gauging interest in various ideas to see if they should pursue tham and at what priority. My recommendations is that if you see an idea that someone has posted that you think it's a good one, then send in an email to the wishlist also asking for that feature. I'm certain that the more people support something, the higheer on the list it goes.
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George Simmons wrote:

RiscIt wrote:
As for the wishlist.... I've never gotten so much as an acknowledgement to anything I've sent to that address. Feels like a waste of time. Not to mention that if you have an idea that no one else has thought of, it's unlikely to get implemented as they never see that other people support/want it.

I've never gotten a response either, but I don't view that as significant in any way either negative or positive. I expect the wish list exists for sending ideas in that Bob and the gang haven't thought of themselves, and also for gauging interest in various ideas to see if they should pursue tham and at what priority. My recommendations is that if you see an idea that someone has posted that you think it's a good one, then send in an email to the wishlist also asking for that feature. I'm certain that the more people support something, the higheer on the list it goes.

I remember seeing a thread a way back time ago, where Bob or Dan replied saying that, yes we really don't reply, but all the ideas are put into some sort of database/list and are sorted by number interest in that category.
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That's kind of my point, however. They go to a database... And if you have a good unique thought that others haven't thought of, they just rot there because no one else sees it and thinks "ooh! me too!".

*shrug*

I think the system is flawed... S'all I'm sayin'.

If the database was public... then I would think it to be made of win. Though I suspect half the reason it isn't public is simply to prevent other developers from leaching the forums for ideas.

Whatever. It is what it is. My ranting on that subject is totally offtopic for this thread.

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I think Dan, Bob and company would recognize and act on the really good wishlist ideas even if only one person submitted them. Somebody has to be compiling the suggestions so they can group same/similar ideas anyway, so it's not like a concept has to get some number of hits to get attention.

Jeff, your "quote" button isn't working right.

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RiscIt wrote:

Similar to Taybrynn's idea... I'd love to see an expanded console utility with channel groupings. Right now turning on my tree line involves 9 sliders on 2 different controllers (5 on 1, 4 on the other)... It's a pain. The ability to save channel layouts with labels and groups, and have it load one "default" set when you open the utility would be insanely nice, IMO. Heck.. if we ever get a real C/C++ API for the protocol I'll write it myself. Probably never happen, however.

As for the wishlist.... I've never gotten so much as an acknowledgement to anything I've sent to that address. Feels like a waste of time. Not to mention that if you have an idea that no one else has thought of, it's unlikely to get implemented as they never see that other people support/want it.


The console was really intended to help make testing easier. It was not intended to be a real-time lighting show console. Because of the current design we do not recommend the console as a solution lighting control beyond the testing and configuration of things. To be considered a real-time light control system the console requires significant enhancements including some that you have listed.

As far as the API... That has been lingering out there for years. It is not a really high priority for us. It sounds like you are a programmer so as you probably know there is an OCX file distributed with the software that is used to communicate with the controllers. There are are few businesses that use it today to interface their products to LOR hardware but we do not officially support it.

We do not acknowledge wish list emails. It is true that we look at the number of times an enhancement is requested, but that is not the only criteria used to judge the significance of a suggestion. If we see an great idea and it is only listed once that does not make it any less a great idea. So is the idea of a unpublished wishlist flawed? Well nothing is perfect but it serves the purpose and we plan to keep it that way for now.

Dan
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Thanks for the follow up, Dan. I appreciate it.

If I ever get out from under my current workload I'll poke around for that OCX file.

Is there any unofficial/unsupported documentation out there?

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RiscIt wrote:

Thanks for the follow up, Dan. I appreciate it.

If I ever get out from under my current workload I'll poke around for that OCX file.

Is there any unofficial/unsupported documentation out there?

We had a document but it got so outdated that it was suggested (by those who know best) that we no longer distribute. If we get some free time we will try to get it up to date. The OCX is called ChannelIO.
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