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Feedback and questions regarding Show Manager

Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 5:11 am
by Ben Buchwald
First of all, I just discovered QLC+ and it totally restores my faith in open-source lighting/show control software after some of the horrible stuff I've used before. Fixture and scene editing, virtual console, and Simple Desk all seem really great, but I've had some confusion and hit some bugs working with shows. Here is a list in no particular order.

1. (suggestion) When dragging sequences within tracks in the Show tab, it lets me drag it anywhere and then snaps when I drop. It should constrain it so that I stays on the track (doesn't drag vertically), and if snapping to grid it turned on, it should snap as I drag.

2. (suggestion) There should be a mode so that multiple sequences in the same track snap adjacent to each other.

3. (suggestion) I would like to be able to see and edit numerically the start time of a sequence in a track. Maybe also being able to zoom in further on the track than just 1s per division.

4. (suggestion) There's no where to rename or delete a show from within the show editor

5. (bug) When I click the new show button and it bring up the dialog to name it, clicking cancel still creates it

6. (bug) When deleting tracks (scenes) or sequences from the show editor, it asks me if I want to delete the scenes/sequences themselves. The message isn't very clear and when I do, it seems that it does delete them, but doesn't remove them from the Functions tab until I save and reopen the file. Trying to interact with them on the function tab can cause crashes.

7. (bug) When creating new sequences from the Show tab, an extra chaser shows up on the Functions tab that doesn't really exist and won't go away unless I save and re-open.

8. (bug?) When I create a sequence under an existing scene, that scene loses its levels. It still lets me set them, but they don't save. Should a scene that has sequences under it only exist to define the set of fixtures/channels in the sequences? If so, maybe that should be a different thing than scenes so that scenes don't loose their values.

9. (suggestion) I would like to be able to scrub the timeline bar in the show editor. Right now it only moves when I click, but it should continue to move as I drag until I release the mouse.

10. (question) I'm a bit confused about the speed settings for chasers and sequences. For starters, I understand per-step and common (mostly) but what is the fade in/out speed when I selected default? In sequence I'd guess it is whatever is defined for the scene (is that right?) but what about for a chaser? Is it then the default fade in/out time for whatever function is used in each step?

11. (question) Part two of the above question. What is the relationship between hold time and duration? I see that when I do everything per-step, the duration is just the fade in plus the hold and if I edit the duration it just adjusts the hold to be the new duration minus the fade in. But when I set Step Duration to Common, things get really weird. Is this really setting a common duration, or just a common hold time? The speed pop-up had a setting for common hold, but when I do this, the duration column also has the same number, it doesn't appear to add that common hold duration to the per-step fade ins. Is this just a bug?

12. (bug) Actually, in general it seems that the duration column of the chaser/sequence editor doesn't like to update properly. The width of sequence blocks in the show editor also doesn't seem to always update when it ought to.

13. (suggestion) It would be nice to be able to re-order fixtures in the fixture tab. In that tab it seems I can sort by name or address, but in the scene editor or Simple Desk in the fixture video mode, they are sorted in the order I added them to the project. Not only would like to be able to see this order in the Fixtures tab, but I'd like to be able to control this order.

I think that's all I've got for now. It's great to see a project this good this far along, though. I am myself a developer and have done a lot of show control system programming as well as some Qt GUI programming. For my last project I wrote my own fixture and scene setting program that I could control with the BCF2000. It was no where near as nice looking or advance as QLC+ and didn't have any capability of doing what QLC+ calls functions or shows, which is why I was happy to find QLC+ since I need those features for my new project. I'm glad to see this is open-source. Maybe when I have more free time after I'm done with my current project I'd like to contribute to this project and address some of the above bugs and suggestions myself. I also have some other ideas like functionality to export shows to be played back with other playback systems.

Feedback and questions regarding Show Manager

Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 9:55 am
by Massimo Callegari
Hello Ben, thanks for the complete report.
Some points are quick and easy, some others require some time that I cannot dedicate right now.

For now I just fixed #5

Feedback and questions regarding Show Manager

Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 12:11 pm
by Massimo Callegari
Regarding #7, I'm not able to reproduce it. On an empty project I created a show, added a track, added a sequence. No extra chaser is created. Please detail how to reproduce.

Feedback and questions regarding Show Manager

Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 12:14 pm
by Massimo Callegari
About #6: it's written in bold in the documentation: "Note: Show Manager will only perform a "visual removal" of functions. To permanently delete them, please use the Function Manager"
Again, please detail the exact steps to reproduce the crashes from an empty project.

Feedback and questions regarding Show Manager

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 5:19 pm
by Ben Buchwald
I will write a detailed repro if I see the crash again. I did figure out how to make the erroneous chaser appear. If a create a new project, create a scene in the Functions tab, create a new show, then when I go to add a new track I select the existing scene. In addition to adding the scene, it also creates a default sequence, except over in the Functions tab the sequence doesn't show up as a sequence under the scene. Instead there's a New Chaser listed (that doesn't really exist). Even if I delete this New Chaser, the Chaser top-level node doesn't go away, even though it normally would.

Another bug I noticed is that the tree in the functions tab lets me drag nodes and reparent them anywhere, including places they shouldn't go. But when do that, they disappear and stuff gets messed up.

Feedback and questions regarding Show Manager

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2013 6:10 pm
by Massimo Callegari
OK, #7 fixed now. Thanks

Feedback and questions regarding Show Manager

Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2014 1:32 am
by Mike Rosser
I am new to QLC+ and, for the most part me and my lighting team are impressed with the software EXCEPT for the following bugs or issues.....

1) I too have a the same questions as 10 and 11 in this post. I don't understand why I would ever want a "duration" time for any scene in a cue list. QLC+ is being used in a church setting and all of our cues are advanced by pressing the spacebar on the keyboard whenever the action on the stage requires a cue change.

2) Why can't we set predefined "hold" times in the cue list? Example: As our congregation enters we have a slow fade/chase (our system is very small- all static fixtures) on our back-wall scrim. While we can set the fade in/out time in the cue list we can't seem to set a hold time between the cycle change of colors. Are we doing something wrong? It's a nuisance to have to manually change the hold time during a live worship service when the fade time isn't determined by a song.

3) Clicking outside of the cuelist (such as resetting the hold time) causes the cuelist to become inactive and the orange icon to disappear which also causes the space bar to become disabled and NOT able to advance to the next cue.

4) It would be an extreme help if we could skip through the cues with a point-and-click selection method. Example: Our order of worship changed during the service yesterday causing me to advance 3 cues ahead THEN going BACK 2 cues and again advancing 4 cues ahead. I wasn't able to manually select the next cue. One of the cues in the list for yesterday was a blackout cue and advancing through the cues caused a quick drop in all of the stage levels!!

5) Using the "TAP" feature on the clock wheel to set the chase to the beat of a song changes speed as soon as the mouse is moved off the button. ALSO: Just moving the mouse ANYWHERE on the screen causes the chase (set by the tap button) to become erratic.

6) It would be nice to have the option to override the fade times set in the cue list by using the clock/timer dials during a live service.

7) On a few occasions advancing to the next cue doesn't always cancel the previous cue.

All in all I am satisfied with the functionality of this software and I know posts like these are a great source of perfecting the best program available.

Thanks so very much for your time.

God bless!

PS: I would be glad to send you an attachment to our QLC+ for our church lighting design if I had a private email address.