Q Light Controller+

I have been creating some chasers (in preparation for theatre use ) and founds some bugs and some other comments.

(QLC+ 5.0 Alpha 3 and Mac OS 10.13.6)

1. If you add a chaser to itself (not that you would want to but QLC+ 5.0 Alpha lets you!), then immediate crash.

2. If you change the hold time, then the fade in time changes to the same value if the duration is set to 'common'

3. (possibly related to Qt bug). When scrolling while over the top of the run property buttons, the button logo changes (but not the option).

4. Chaser in chaser fade times issues from QLC+ 4 still remain in QLC+ 5. That is the fade time set in the enclosing chaser is being applied to each step of the enclosed chaser.


Some usability gripes...

1. I like the idea of being able to tab between fade in, hold, fade out and duration but if you type the values, then you need to hit enter to confirm the value. It would save some keystrokes if tab also confirmed the value.
2. If you type a value, say 3500 then it assumes 3s500ms but if you type 3.5s then it assumes 35s. I might just have to get used to ms if that is how the industry works.
3. I can't find away to change the order of scenes in a chaser. Perhaps a feature not implemented yet?
4. Copying and Pasting Chaser steps was really handy. Is this feature returning?
5. The large font, button and menu bars take up a lot of screen real-estate needlessly. I am assuming that this to suit touch screens but with the high resolution screens these days, do they need to be so large?

Anyway, just some comments. Feel free to ignore them.

Love your work.

Cheers
Mark

A couple of other things.

1. I prefer the spelling of the unit of length to be 'metre' rather than 'meter' for environment settings
2. If you quit QLC+ 5.0 before saving, the dialogue, with the option to save, appears briefly then QLC+ quits without the chance to save.
3. I really like being able to drag fixtures around in the group view but it is possible to drag them so they disappear completely but 'reset the entire group' doesn't make them return

mlohrey wrote: ↑Fri Aug 10, 2018 11:09 am 1. If you add a chaser to itself (not that you would want to but QLC+ 5.0 Alpha lets you!), then immediate crash.

Yeah, that should be definitely not allowed. I'll fix it.

2. If you change the hold time, then the fade in time changes to the same value if the duration is set to 'common'
3. (possibly related to Qt bug). When scrolling while over the top of the run property buttons, the button logo changes (but not the option).

I'll investigate these.

4. Chaser in chaser fade times issues from QLC+ 4 still remain in QLC+ 5. That is the fade time set in the enclosing chaser is being applied to each step of the enclosed chaser.

QLC+ 4 and 5 share the same engine, so they share also the same bugs
I have some issues to fix on QLC+ 4, so QLC+ 5 will benefit as well.

1. I like the idea of being able to tab between fade in, hold, fade out and duration but if you type the values, then you need to hit enter to confirm the value. It would save some keystrokes if tab also confirmed the value.

I agree. I think I've seen it too while creating the 3D demo. Pretty annoying actually.

2. If you type a value, say 3500 then it assumes 3s500ms but if you type 3.5s then it assumes 35s. I might just have to get used to ms if that is how the industry works.

Same as QLC+ 4. You either type milliseconds (e.g. 3500) or times with the "QLC+ syntax", so "3s500ms".

3. I can't find away to change the order of scenes in a chaser. Perhaps a feature not implemented yet?

Not implemented actually. Should be drag and drop like in the Collection editor.

4. Copying and Pasting Chaser steps was really handy. Is this feature returning?

Indeed. To be implemented.

5. The large font, button and menu bars take up a lot of screen real-estate needlessly. I am assuming that this to suit touch screens but with the high resolution screens these days, do they need to be so large?

I need more info to reply on this. E.g monitor inches, resolution, DPI. A screenshot perhaps would help.
In theory, QLC+ 5 adapts to DPI and tends to provide buttons with the size of a finger.

1. I prefer the spelling of the unit of length to be 'metre' rather than 'meter' for environment settings

I suspect you prefer also "Colour" rather than "Color" or "Lift" rather than "Elevator"
You need to speak with your American friends, not me

2. If you quit QLC+ 5.0 before saving, the dialogue, with the option to save, appears briefly then QLC+ quits without the chance to save.

YEAH ! Damn macOS ! I noticed that too late before releasing and I'm pretty sure it will be a pain in the ass to fix it cause Linux and Windows behave correctly.

3. I really like being able to drag fixtures around in the group view but it is possible to drag them so they disappear completely but 'reset the entire group' doesn't make them return

Yes. It was in my plans and then didn't have the chance to do it. I think you can remove a head from the left panel though.

Thanks Massimo.
I do prefer colour, not fussed about lift or elevator, but given my American friends refuse to see sense and use metric, let”s make it metre. Lol

In the documentation it says: "The timings steps and the note field can be modified by double clicking on them. By default the times are taken in seconds (for example 135 means 2m15s), unless you use the same syntax QLC+ uses (for example 1m12s.80)" But reading this comment AND my own experience it always assumes ms. So if I type 135, it comes up 135ms, not 2m15s as stated.

Honestly, I never use ms except when I specifically need a subsecond cue time. For theater, I almost always want seconds. At the very least, there should be a parameter that controls the default (maybe in the config file) so that 1 or 4 (some of my most comment SECOND cue times are 1s and 4s, not 1ms and 4ms. Essentially I waste a LOT of time typing "s" after every number I put into a cue list/chase. Ideally this could be a checkbox in the chaser so that different chasers could have different defaults (if I am writing a scene cue list, seconds would almost always be the default, but if I am actually constructing a real "chase", then I could see where using ms might be a better option. Actually tenths of a second would be another option for that and require less typing of extraneous zeroes.

Thanks!

Jon/bleurose