Q Light Controller+

hello everybody,

just tried the new 4.10.4 and I've a doubt about the functionality of the play/pause functions on the same button:
personally I find more efficient to have the play/stop functions on the same button - how it was before - and the pause on a separate one because this allow me to start and stop a cue list with one button, for me it's faster and I don't need a midi controller with 2 buttons for each cue list.
I often use several cue lists to control only certain parameters of fixtures that are played on a main one, a kind of "cue stack concept" borrowed from lighting consoles.
Of course it's my personal working case and I'm glad for the pause function, nevertheless I believe it's something used much less than the stop function and in case it can be always be assigned to an external button.
What do you think?

have a good week
Giacomo

Hi Giacomo.
Alright, now I am confused because I don't really understand what theatre guys really need.

The reasons behind the play/pause button were:
- in a "sequential" theatre workflow, where acts and actors on a stage follow a script, the Cue List should never be stopped, but instead if actors take more than expected, the lighting guy can pause the current cue and give them time before switching to the next cue. All with just one mapped button.

- during a reharsal, with the art director on stage, you never want the stage to blackout, so when you need to edit a cue, you pause it, go to live edit and make the changes. Then resume the cue.

- in every player in the world, either audio or video, the play and pause button is a single one, while stop is separate

I'm not sure about it, but I think you told me 2 on the 3 above.

Now, as always I cannot make everybody happy, but I'd like to hear other theatre guys opinion and put this functionality up to votes.
Reverting to the old behaviour is like saying "ok guys, it was a joke. Let's change it back again"...and surely someone will say "I liked how it was before"

Hi Massimo and first of all thanks for your reply.

I haven't said that the new feature isn't useful, I've just doubts about having it on the same button, this is why I was asking what other people think.
I find much more interesting the possibility to enable/disable a cue list with just 1 button, consequently I would rather separate the pause on a different one,

You're right about players but are we simply playing a track that eventually needs to be paused or are we trying to achieve something else?
In the word there are also other strategies: play can activate a cue list the first time and then operate as a go to the next step, pause can stop the fade while it's running or go back one step if any fade is running, so with 2 buttons one can do the same operations that we do with 3.

mcallegari wrote: - during a reharsal, with the art director on stage, you never want the stage to blackout, so when you need to edit a cue, you pause it, go to live edit and make the changes. Then resume the cue.

For the moment I can't test it on a real stage but from the DMX monitor I don't notice any difference from the live edit as before:
-if I do a blind live edit anyway I've to reload the cue;
-if I do a not-blind live edit the change is applied instantly.

A last question:
from the dmx monitor I can see that the pause function is controlling only the next step cue, not the old one, am I right?

Hi Massimo,
I also had the opportunity to test 4.10.4 now. Unfortunately it turns out that the play / pause behaviour destroys the complete workflow of my workspace* and there's no quick workaround for this. I guess the most easy way to make almost everyone happy would be an option to choose between play/pause seperate stop, and play/stop seperate pause behaviour in the next version maybe.

*to elaborate the use case for the case someone is interested: I use the cue lists as "containers" (or also "advanced buttons") for scenes / chases / effects and the buttons on the midi hardware (nanoKontrol2) control different groups of cue lists in solo frames where the cue lists are duplicates except for special cases. With this workflow I can use the GUI to change to some extent quickly what the buttons on the midi device actually start and stop.



Greetings,
Daniel

Option to select "Play/Pause + Stop" or "Play/Stop + Pause" now implemented on GIT.

Linux automated builds are on the way, otherwise build from sources.

thanks Massimo