Ergonomics and design

[KoalaMan]

Hello!

I'm a "long time" user of QLC and QLC+, even though my skills are quite basic. I use QLC+ for my students' shows, to give them a feeling of professionalism and reinforce their self confidence.

I've been searching for it, but I couldn't really find any relevant topic for my question. Please give me a link if this question has already been treated somewhere else.


Basically, I find my QLC design quite bad. I'm trying to get it arranged by type of fixture, then fixed color, then chasers (I do not have any moving head, scanner or laser stuff, just basic fixtures like led bars and pars and some traditional theater light).

Is there any expert in ergonomics who could share some good advice, or some advanced user willing to share with me the good practice?


Thanks for the help, great team and great software!

[janosvitok]

Hi,

what do you mean by "my students' shows"? Is theatre or concerts or something else?
Can you attach here one of your workspaces so we can see how do you organize things?
Do you use any external controllers (MIDI/OSC)?

Maybe you can post your file, and make a "competition" - who comes up with the best design/layout for the stuff in the file

[KoalaMan]

Hi,

what do you mean by "my students' shows"? Is theatre or concerts or something else?
Can you attach here one of your workspaces so we can see how do you organize things?
Do you use any external controllers (MIDI/OSC)?

Maybe you can post your file, and make a "competition" - who comes up with the best design/layout for the stuff in the file

Hi, when I write "my students' show", I'm music teacher in a school in Sweden, and we do organize diverse events throughout the school year. These can be a "talent show", a musical, a fashion exhibition, some theater, concerts and celebrations.

Basically, anything that can take place in a school, we do it.

I am new at this school, so my VC is not completely ready yet, but this is how it looks like as of today.

[mcallegari]

I was thinking about the same.
We could open a sticky post in this forum so users can share their Virtual Consoles and explain the layout they designed.

@KoalaMan: there's a screenshot of a very nice VC in the QLC+ website homepage. Unfortunately I don't have the workspace of it so I cannot share how he did it.
I guess design is driven by your needs and taste.
It can be driven also by the available space on the screen (if limited, the usage of multi page frames can be a solution)
In general though I would say that you should design a modular console, where items represent a logical part of your show. (examples: colors, positions, smoke, animations, speeds, etc..)

[sketron]

Hi, i've tried to begin a so similar topic in past.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9258&p=40763#p40763

Maybe you can begin to post your project (here?, in other post?, we can join these?) and other qlc+ user will follow us idea.

[KoalaMan]

I am new on the forum, so not really used to how it works, so I let you decide what would be best to do.

For my point, it feels like my VC looks like a 1980's interface, with flashy colors and hard to get a grip on at first view.

I'd like to be able to understand some basics of layout design in order to make it more clear, to my and eventually to anybody willing to control the lightning of our shows (probably a student with an interest for stage technique).

It does not really matter what "I" think, what I would like to create is an clear interface where virtually anybody can find his or her way.

One of the main questions I have is about how to arrange the items: it is more clear when you have them by color or by fixture?

And where do you please your chasers? How do you name your colors? I use English, even though I am french and living in Sweden, just because I find it more clear.


Maybe if somebody can compare our VC with how professional softwares are organized? (I know that QLC+ can be used professionally, I guess you know what I mean by that: "expensive and more exclusive softwares").

[mcallegari]

"expensive and more exclusive softwares" do not have the Virtual Console concept.
That's why they are expensive

[KoalaMan]

I'm sorry Massimo, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings at all, I just can't find a better way to describe for example the control system on a GrandMA or maybe something like Sunlite. I love QLC+ also for the fact that it is open even to beginners like me... And I didn't mean at all that QLC was a "cheap" version of something better.

[mcallegari]

No hurt at all ! I was just joking around

[siegmund]

I was thinking about the same.
We could open a sticky post in this forum so users can share their Virtual Consoles and explain the layout they designed.

+1 for that!

Especially for beginners like me it's very usefull to see what others are doing with the software. It's like finding your programming style - you look at some code written by others and pick out what seems best to you.
I was looking for something like that since I started using QLC+ some years ago, but never found a collection of workspace files/VCs.

So creating a sticky post is a great idea I think!

[KoalaMan]

Could you post your own VC?

Or should I create a new topic?

[mcallegari]

Please wait.
I'm still thinking if this is a good idea, as it will surely end up with people posting not-quite-instructive projects and VC.

For example sketron console doesn't look to me like something to learn from. It has overlapping widgets and as he admitted, it's still a work in progress.
I don't want users to complain because they learn some bad practices from other users.

[sketron]

Please wait.
For example sketron console doesn't look to me like something to learn from.

Hi massimo,
Yes, I know , I had published in the hope that someone else shared his.
If it's too bad I can arrange to remove it.

[mcallegari]

Please wait.
For example sketron console doesn't look to me like something to learn from.

Hi massimo,
Yes, I know , I had published in the hope that someone else shared his.
If it's too bad I can arrange to remove it.

Don't worry Fabio. I didn't mean to say your console is bad. In the end if it works for you and you're happy with it, then it's enough, no ?
I also understand that after weeks of work, one is proud about it and I always appreciate who is willing to share.
What we're discussing here (and correct me guys if I got it wrong) is creating a reference post where users share their work.
If it really wants to be a reference for workspaces and virtual consoles, then I'd expect users to be able to learn from others' work.

My doubt though is that every project use different fixtures, every user has his own taste, and so on.
I really like the gray-ish VC in the QLC+ website homepage, but again it's just my taste. Others might not like it for some reasons.

Let me think about it a couple days more. I'm super busy lately and I can't really switch my mind from topic to topic.

[KoalaMan]

I'll wait then!

As a teacher, I find that seeing the others' "mistakes" is often a good way to avoid them ourselves, but I do respect your quest for quality over quantity!