spencer

how about @clear (not very logical) or through clear (has the right kind of idea as we are trying to clear 1 through 512.

I find it frustrating that the next memory to go is the same as the next memory to edit. When a show is live or often during rehearsal I want to go and work on a memory later in the stack, because this moves the next memory on the playback I can't carry on editing and press go, I am sure this kind of half a brain on the rehearsal of the first act half on plotting the second act goes on all the time. In a similair product I use for tv playback there is a right click edit that doesnt select the event as next, perhaps this would work so I right click a line and it opens the CDW for editing blind and leaves the next memory marker where it is. I think most of the confusion in what the board does is because of this dual function of the next highlight.

I also find it confusing not being able to use clear to clear the command line, this works on non strand boards such as compulite. I often prefer the z88 way of working but in this case I think you have got it wrong, clear should mean clear like on a calculator. some other sequence should be used for deselecting or whatever as clearing the command line needs to be done many times when plotting. I think it would be worth trying the exercise of trying to plot channel numbers and levels into cues as they are called and seeing where the weak points are.

I thought I should post here to thank everyone at Z88 for the version 7 software. Lots of the niggles I had are fixed and it even works correctly with my LCD screen now. Now looking forward to some basic moving light functions as these are a pig (or should that be frog) to do with the current system. Also still hoping for an easy way of labelling channels on the fly, we really should be past having to work with all these numbers by now. One thing both of us who use the desk have noted is that we are gravitating to using the mouse for almost everything during plotting and I thought I would never touch it.

yes it would but it requires a manual operation to fade up the submaster. Not a great hardship except we do try to make everything go button driven if possible. I guess I might be able to use a macro or something to operate the submaster from the main playback, I will have a play once this show is over and see if I can find a good way of doing it. I am still adjusting to the way of working, used to more than one playback, the multi-part memories work for most situations except when a chase is in use, its then that I miss the second playback.

when using a chase it is usually only a part of a state with some fixed lighting, because of the single playback I have been adding the fixed lighting to every step of the chase which works but is a pig when editing the fixed part as it needs to be done to every step in the chase. The option to make chases additive so a chase doesn't have to remove the last cue or a way of changing every step in a chase would save a lot of time.

I would also lobby for dimmer curves as all the fades I do seem to be out by about halfway through, I am using betapacks. Just being able to set a channel in the channel patch to use a tungsten to linear curve would solve the problem.

if you press edit live whatever was last in the editor is presented to the dmx output then replaced with the memory you are trying to tweak. This unfortunately makes the edit live unuseable as there is a risk of unwanted lighting being flashed up. A workaround is to press edit blind then once the editor has gathered its wits press edit live. Any chance of a reply to this as it has been on here a month now.

when swithcing to the keep active memories only view it would be nice if the active line could be kept at the top of the screen. At the moment you always seem to end up looking at the past rather than the future.

the now and next cue numbers in the status line at the bottom of the screen change at the start of a cue and not at the end. eg if I have this now next 1 2 when I press go on playback X i immediately get now next 2 3 even though I might have a 3 minute transition running. I think the display should only advance when the previous transition has completed. Especially as the transition progress is being shown in the same area, it has caused me to panic without need as the desk is doing the right thing but indicating something else.

on re reading your post I now understand what you are asking, I have never actually used the cross patching in earnest unless the number of control channels is smaller than the DMX universe. Since I only work in small theatres with usually less than 100 dimmer channels the 1 to 1 patch always works for me.

it is the label you currently see if you go to setup and channel setup. There is currently one per desk channel which you see if you right click the channel number in the channel editor. This is very useful for those of us who think in words rather than numbers so the facility is already there, it is just that editing the names requires you to go into setup mode that is a pain. If I were asking for the moon I would have a third view option for the channel editor which shows channel number, name and intensity in each block without the bargraph, this would remove the need to have a paper channel list when operating and programming the board.

It is a bit of a pain that to label a channel, which is much more of a user/show related function than a setup one you have to go into setup. Because in setup the desk is disabled there is no way to flash through channels and label them so for instance plugging the desk in at a new venue I would want to flash channel 1 and then enter a label eg 'foh sl cold'. This could perhaps best be done by adding a label editing dialog to the channels screen. I currently have to use a notebook to write down what each channel does then enter setup mode and type it into the desk.

thanks for the reply Paul. I understand the reluctance to publish your format although surely the changing features argument applies to yourselves internally as well (I assume you make shows backwards compatible). Of course as you say you format is not easy to hand decode, I am trying but have found the block checksum at the beginning of each record has me scratching my head (some shifting or a constant table involved methinks!). Of course I will persevere as it has now become an irritation to me, If anyone has any clues to hoe this is done I would be interested. I purchased the desk (I think one of the first ten 500s) based on a demo at plasa of the original illusion (5 years ago) and because I had good experience with your other desks. I didn't even think you might have gone to any trouble to deliberately obscure the information in show files. You and the others at zero88 have made a great product in the illusion500. The change to schadow buttons and the metal case make this a desk to compete with the big boys, the lack of an offline editor is not however going to sell more desks. As for ascii show files, what about using XML, it has worked well for us in a slightly different field as it allows more or less information to be imported or exported.

I am having trouble using the desk with a hercules brand LCD display. I can use it with a Philips display but I have to adjust the display to the edge of its range on frequency to get the horizontal edged of the display on. I would like to use the hercules screen as it is metal cased and matches the paint finish on the illusion. It would be useful to have some adjustment of the horizontal frequency of the vga display, I suspect this will come up more often as more people try to use pixel mapped displays.