Q Light Controller+

Hi everyone!
QLC+ 4.12.5 is among us!
Being a maintenance version, it comes with a few fixes and a few goodies, also contributed by community users (thanks!)

Some long standing issues are finally fixed, like preserving devices order at startup. See my blog post about it.
There's also a compromise for 16bit fading to work: coarse and fine channels should target the same value.

Please let me know if all packages for all platforms work as expected, especially on macOS.
Building environment issues are a quite time consuming activity of this project.

Raspberry Pi users: version 20220620 is already available in the reserved area.

Changelog:

• engine: add support for 16bit fading
• engine: add support for Scene pausing
• engine: consider fade out on Scene flashing
• engine: consider fade out of an Audio function as Chaser step
• engine: fixture definitions are now searched in the project folder too
• UI/RGB Matrix Editor: fix dumping on a Sequence
• UI/Sequence Editor: fix step values not sent to output/monitor
• Virtual Console/Slider: fix crash when controlling non existing channels
• Virtual Console/XY Pad: fix layout (thanks to Hans-Jürgen Tappe)
• Virtual Console: fix copy of widgets background picture
• Virtual Console/Speed Dial: improve tap tempo detection (thanks to Austin Wright)
• Virtual Console/Speed Dial: fix time overflow above 1h11m
• Virtual Console/Cue List: fix side fader feedbacks (thanks to Daniel Torlop)
• Plugins: save IO lines by name and not by index (where possible)
• Plugins/DMX USB: add support for COM485-PLUS2 product (thanks to David Turner)
• Plugins/E1.31: ignore non DMX packets in input
• Plugins/E1.31: fix universe input above 127
• Plugins/HID: add support for Nodle R4S (thanks to qfulmina)
• Plugins/HID: fix HID DMX support on Windows (thanks to Daniel Kirschten)
• Plugins/MIDI: do not send notes twice when in note output mode (thanks to Edgar Aichinger)
• Web Access: automatically reconnect on disconnection (thanks to João Pereira)
• RGB scripts: added 'Fireworks' script (thanks to Hans-Jürgen Tappe)

New fixtures:

• New fixture: Chauvet COLORbar SMD (thanks to Yestalgia)
• New fixture: lightmaXX Tour Spot ARC MKII (thanks to Tolmino Muccitelli)
• New fixture: Eurolite LED SLS-7 HCL (thanks to René Schulze)
• New fixture: Sagitter Slimpar 12DL (thanks to Lorenzo Bicci)
• New fixture: Stairville CLB5 Compact LED Bar RGBW / RGBWW (thanks to Dominik Kerner)
• New fixtures: Briteq BT-Vintage, Briteq BT-70LS (thanks to David Thomas)
• New fixtures: Look Solutions Viper NT, Varytec Hero Wash 640FX, Briteq BT-ORBIT, GLP Impression X4 (thanks to Giacomo Gorini)
• New fixture: Eurolite LED KLS-120 FX (thanks to Ralf Martin)
• New fixture: Ibiza PAR LED50-COB (thanks to Clément)
• New fixture: Ayra ERO 075 (thanks to Jan van Rumph)
• New fixtures: Eurolite LED TMH-51, Eurolite LED TMH FE-1800, Eurolite LED TMH-X5 (thanks to Sebastian Moeckel)
• New fixtures: Fun-Generation PicoBeam 60, American DJ Entour Faze (thanks to Sebastian Moeckel)
• New fixtures: Varytec Hero Beam 100, Varytec Hero Spot 230, Varytec Hero Spot Wash 140 2in1 RGBW+W (thanks to Sebastian Moeckel)
• New fixture: Chauvet Rogue R1 FX-B (thanks to Jean-Daniel Garcia / Barbara Brugger)
• New fixture: Chauvet Mini Kinta IRC (thanks to Jason Willett)
• New fixture: Stairville MH-x30 LED Spot (thanks to Peeter)
• New fixtures: Eurolite LED SLS-603, QTX Flare-1000, Fun-Generation MiniSpider FX (thanks to Klaus Muth)
• New fixtures: Clay Paky Arolla Spot MP, Arolla Profile MP, Arolla Profile HP (thanks to Gianluca Baggi, Giordano Fassi)
• New fixture: Martin RUSH Par 2 RGBW Zoom (thanks to jeremy-AMMD)
• New fixture: UKing Wall Washer 24x3W (thanks to Jürgen Froeschlin)
• New fixture: Showtec Par 56 90W COB RGB (thanks to David Gouronc)
• New fixture: UKing B55 Par Can 12 LED RGBW 12W (thanks to Nathan Durnan)
• New fixture: Rockville Best Strip 60 (thanks to DJ Nikko)
• New fixture: Equinox Fusion 50 MkII (thanks to David Dale)
• New fixture: Showtec Slidebar 4 (thanks to Arie Roos)
• New fixture: Briteq BT-Theatre 50WW (thanks to Fredje Gallon)
• New fixtures: Showtec Spectral 850 RGBA Tour LED Spot, Eurolite LED Party Panel RGB+UV (thanks to Stefan Krumm)
• New fixture: Varytec Hero Spot Wash 80 2in1 RGBW+W, Eurolite LED SLS-18x3W TCL (thanks to Hans-Jürgen Tappe)
• New fixture: American DJ Vizi Beam 5RX (thanks to Rich Bell)
• New fixture: Lixada 5LED 50W Beam Wash Double Sides RGBW (thanks to John Yiannikakis)
• New fixture: Chauvet Rogue R2 Wash (thanks to Bobby)
• New fixture: Eurolite TMH-X4 (thanks to Piotr Nowik)
• New fixture: Eurolite LED PARty Hybrid Spot (thanks to Thom Stam)
• New fixtures: Starway ParKolor 120HD, Starway PCKolor HD (thanks to Nestor Laborier)
• New fixtures: Varytec Hero Wash 340FX RGBW Zoom, Showtec Lightbrick (thanks to Thomas Dral)
• New fixtures: beamZ SparkleWall, Involight SBL3000 (thanks to Jan Fries)

Thank you! Is back to work on macos Monterey

Woo Hoo, congrats on a new release! I'll be doing some testing this week!

Apparently Windows download is broken? At least for me there is only a version which has 0 bytes after download and refuses to start.

Edit: nevermind, just Avast being naughty. Quarantines it because of FileRepMalware [Cryp].

Edit 2:
Also main process and fixture editor are caught as Malware by Avast. Registers as: Win32:MalOb-IJ [Cryp]. I have no idea, what that means, both programs seem to run as they should, but I guess that's not the desired behaviour.

Attempted to download and install (Windows) and Norton "totally freaked out" and blocked the install

Run the install with administrator rights; and you will get a warning but you can proceed.

Thank you

Thanks Massimo

thanks for all your continued work!!

however i have noticed that there are a few RGB scrips that are missing from this release compaired to the last one and the new fireworks one is nowhere to be found.

Wow! Some big stuff in here!

Excellent work as always Massimo!

We had removed QLC+ from all of our shows, but the 16 bit fading alone will be enough for us to start using it on the small stuff again. Awesome!!

@Connor, before getting too enthusiastic, the momentary fix for the lower byte of the 16 bit, is copying the upper byte to the lower one. So end dimming (say comming from a 10% output to 0% will still show jumpy 16b steps)
High. Low byte from 10% to 0% (in byte values here u ser)
25, 25
24, 24
23, 23
...
3,3
2,2
1,1
0,0
Notice the copied values above. True 16b dimming would show:
25, 25 .. 00
24, 255 .. 00
...
2, 255 .. 00
1, 255 .. 00
0, 255 .. 00

This is how I tested 16bit fading.
The fix seems to work to me and it doesn't behave like @GGG says

This shows 16bit fading - correctly as i would say, and matching Fredje's description above - but only for the color channels, while the master dimmer only fades via MSB channel, why so?

The sample project was not meant to show 16bit fading on dimmer. If you want to do that as well, set dimmer fine equal to dimmer coarse value.
That's the compromise to have this feature working.
Implementing proper 16bit fading (with arbitrary values) is much more difficult, as it implies to add a sort of "super channels" handling single channels (coarse+fine)

Oh indeed simply raising the dimmer fine channel in the three scenes did the trick!

I don't get the difference between this solution and what "proper 16bit fading" and super-channel might mean, but this seems to be a workable solution indeed. I don't have any 16bit dimming devices at hand currently, the ones I had access to were so cheaply made (beware of Flash-Butrym brand - chinese stuff re-branded as Made in Poland), I sold them quickly 2nd hand half price and never looked back.