Jon Hole
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Posts posted by Jon Hole
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Dear All,
We’re excited to announce the availability of ZerOS 7.10, a new update to the award-winning software available on Zero 88 consoles as well as the Strand FLX S Series recently launched into the Americas market. The new ZerOS 7.10 Update introduces several innovative features that give designers more creative capabilities and improved flexibility to control their luminaires how they want, including new multicell support, a major fixture library update, and new move-on-dark configuration options.
Watch this video for an overview of everything included in the new release:
ZerOS 7.10 introduces other capabilities and bug fixes as well, including the ability to use +/- syntax on the Zero 88 FLX console to adjust intensities, fade times, etc. See the release notes for details on all updates and bug fixes in the software.
We have also created several training videos to get you up to speed on the latest changes:
- ZerOS Training – 7.10 Technical Overview
- ZerOS Training – Multicell on FLX
- ZerOS Training – Multicell on FLX S
- ZerOS Training – How Multicell Works
ZerOS 7.10, Phantom ZerOS 7.10 (offline editor) and the Release Notes can be found at zero88.com/zeros
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@zero88.com
Best regards,
Jon
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Hi Tony,
To answer your question we need to know about the whole system, not just the console. Do you know who installed the lighting system in the school? If so, contacting them would be a good starting point as they hopefully have the whole system documented and will be in a position to help much quicker than we will be able to.
If not, please provide as much information / photos of anything you can find that might be part of the lighting system - including close up pictures of the lights themselves (showing make / model etc) and we'll try to help!
Jon
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2 hours ago, Kauz said:
Unfortunately there is no equivalent for the THRU soft key.
">" acts as THRU
There's a full list of keyboard shortcuts for FLX S available here: https://zero88.com/manuals/zeros/shortcuts/keyboard-shortcuts#flxs
2 hours ago, Kauz said:Why did zero88 not use the "/" key for this?
ZerOS uses "/" in lots of syntax, meaning it wasn't available for THRU. For example, on an ORB, the syntax "CUE a/b TIME x/y ENTER" applies an up time of "a" and a down time of "b" to cue "y" of Cue Stack "x"
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Worth noting that there's a current thread discussing and voting for new features in ZerOS. One of the options is "Exclusive Playbacks", which is what you're describing.
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13 hours ago, delicolor said:
if the FLX-S booted up reflecting the faders and page/mode used on shutdown rather than defaulting to all faders off regardless of position, that would be useful.
Just so you know, it’s a hardware limitation that makes this feature unavailable, so we could never introduce this as a software update. However, there are potentially other options - such as maybe introducing a “startup state”.
11 hours ago, keredyelesob said:When you say 'Fixture builder within ZerOS' will this builder be able to support all of the new features that are getting implemented within the beta and future releases. or will it just be the fixture builder that is available in windows but ported into Zeros?
Almost none of the listed features have been fully scooped or spec’d, so at this stage it’s hard to say. However, if we’re doing this, it would cover all the new features. Whether it was a full builder within ZerOS, or a simple builder within ZerOS and a full builder somewhere else, is up for discussion.
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1 hour ago, kgallen said:
Would the MIDI Out be via macros?
A good question. All these features would need scoping and specifying. With MIDI, I suspect the main uses would be for MIDI TimeCode (Cue X starts timecode, Cue Y stops timecode) and MIDI Show Control (Cue X automatically sends out a GO CUE X MSC message, Cue Y automatically sends out a GO CUE Y MSC message, etc). Whether we also need to allow completely customisable MIDI Messages to be transmitted needs investigating.
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15 minutes ago, kgallen said:
Maybe it is worth splitting this survey into say 3 categories of easy/medium/big development cost and getting us to vote on them?
I did think about doing this, and internally we have a "Resource vs Value" spreadsheet that tracks some of these issues... but I fell back to the "KISS principle" to make it simple to understand and vote. But it's a completely valid point.
15 minutes ago, kgallen said:One other for me is dimmer curves
This is a great suggestion which we forgot to add. I've added it to the list (you can edit your vote, but it involves reselecting the items you selected last time)
15 minutes ago, kgallen said:I don't believe the desk can output MIDI control, so I have to do via DMX.
FYI - FLX (full size) has the hardware ability to generate and output MIDI. The "Thru/Out" port has a software switch to switch it between "Thru" and "Out". Currently, ZerOS doesn't support outputting MIDI, so this is always set to "Thru" (which is why one of the poll options is "MIDI Out support on FLX")
15 minutes ago, kgallen said:I can see Jon wants a new skin. I think many users might consider this a distraction to getting much awaited functional features 😛
I'm sure it would! Each item on the list would ideally include a few paragraphs of text explaining the feature. A new skin isn't just for a visual refresh (although I do feel that's needed too). We receive comments about font size and readability, Remote App scaling at certain resolutions, the size of some buttons and keyboards, accessibility (colour schemes, contrast etc) - so it incorporates all of that.
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We’d like a single location to discuss new feature requests - so we’ve created this topic, along with this poll. Vote for which features you’d like next within ZerOS, and add your comments, ideas and suggestions in the comments. Any new suggestions, we’ll add as options within the poll.
Remember – this is all about priorities… voting for everything is equal to voting for nothing. I suggest you vote for around 5 - 8 items in total… but it’s up to you.
We've enabled "make voter names public" to allow the Zero 88 team to vote on their personal preferences, whilst retaining full transparency.
We will review and discuss the results of this poll internally, but please remember that this forum is one of many methods we use to collate feedback. Therefore, we’re not guaranteeing that we will develop the highest-voted features within this topic.
Feel free to add comments and suggestions below.
Happy voting!
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Hi Kevin,
These changes were completed back in November 2020, so any changes to our business in 2021 is completely irrelevant. Absolutely no data was lost, just moved. That update, which was principally initiated by myself – no one else, was directly as a result of having such poor feedback to our previous knowledgebase… which we’ve spoken about previously.
(It’s worth noting that the knowledgebase was only live for a little over three years. The forum contains much more information, spanning multiple decades, than the knowledgebase ever did).
So… I think this is less about us “going to sh*t” and more about some links within some forum topics (which are over one year old) being broken. There’s no doubt that it’s frustrating - equally so for Edward, Keith and I (if not more!). Unfortunately the old knowledgebase was not hosted on our servers, so we had no access to the raw database, data or code, so we could find no automatic solution. We manually updated all the links on our website and documentation. When we find forum articles that have out of date links, we try to update them - but manually reviewing 25,000+ forum posts is not a good use of our time.
To provide some background to our solution, and how to successfully find answers, we invested a lot of time and money into bespoke solutions to put information where customers would find it. The decision was to switch from starting at a central location (with hundreds of unrelated articles) to starting at the relevant product page. If you want information about a specific product, you go to that product's page. For current products, some of the information will be directly there, whilst most will be in the manual (accessible from the product page). For legacy products, this involved creating a page, with downloads and resources, for EVERY product Zero 88 manufactured over our 50 year lifespan - a horrific amount of work, but I'm really proud we chose to do it.
We know from logs and feedback that this is working well for most customers. The issue comes when longer term customers, who were used to previously having a central location, have to get used to the change – we’ve tried our best to communicate that across the forum, social media, etc.
No data in the old knowledgebase was lost - it was split into three categories:
- For spare parts (eg faders, batteries etc) these are listed on each product’s page, including legacy products. (note: this is the first time we have freely published a full list of spare parts to end users – eg, for FLX, you can see part numbers and descriptions for each part of your console).
- For features, troubleshooting, maintenance, etc of current products, everything is in the interactive manuals. Feedback to these have been very positive and are far more comprehensive than any manual we’ve had previously. I’m sure there are areas we could improve, but they’ve definitely not gone backwards.
- For features, troubleshooting, maintenance, etc of legacy products the article is available as a download on that legacy product.
In reviewing the situation for this reply, I have noticed two possible "gotchas" which might be causing some of this pain:
- The website-wide search, by default, does not search "manuals" (I had forgotten this!). User feedback was that useful results were just swamped and lost by so many manual results. Therefore, to search manuals, you need to search and then click the "Manuals" filter along the top (or, more easily, use the relevant manual’s specific search).
- Regarding the thread you mentioned, software installation instructions (including how to create a USB Bootable drive) are included within the release notes (along with the ZerOS manual). However, in the release notes, there was a typo in the URL. This has been updated for future release notes.
If there are specific suggestions on how we can improve, we'll always try to take those on board. Just last week, two seperate updates were made to our website based on really great suggestions through this forum - both were implemented within 24-48 hours.
Jon
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Hi Derek,
27 minutes ago, keredyelesob said:How do we create a fixture that uses new functionality such as multicell control? To clarify for others, new functionality is NOT supported by the fixture tools.
Please remember you're talking about unfinished, unreleased beta software in our public forums. More than happy to continue this conversation in the beta forums, but not publicly.
27 minutes ago, keredyelesob said:OK, do you have a time line, as this is the first time you have mentioned the support for colours outside of RGBW
As you're fully aware, we currently take the position of not talking about our product roadmap. We've done this precisely because of not wanting to let users down - and have been very open and honest about how that has happened in the past . A few weeks ago, in response to another thread which you were part of, I asked "I'd be interested to be pointed towards other industry players who are willing to publish roadmaps with dates, as I'm unaware of them" - I haven't yet received any replies to that request, and I'd still be very interested to know of them.
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Nah, Mandy in marketing has been with Zero 88 longer than Edward and me put together! She's now part of a team that covers Zero 88, Strand, Vari-Lite and Color Kinetics... but none of the other Signify brands.
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You could use Macros to achieve this via ZerOS Remote app. Add "RemDim" as a UDK, and then record a Macro of you recording that ("RECORD MACRO 2 ENTER {Commands}" - then press the UDK - then press MACRO to stop recording the Macro).
(Because you select "Commands" rather than "Keys", you can delete RemDim from the UDK after recording the Macro and the Macro will continue to work).
Next / Previous is holding SHIFT whilst pressing the left / right arrow keys. Again, you could record Macros of this, so you then have a screen on ZerOS Remote which looks like this:
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Hi hafashah,
You can now record (& update, delete, etc) home / default / max levels just like any other cue, by setting up the default, pressing RECORD and then pressing HOME.
Note that all the setting in the Record Window apply, such as Tagging, Smart Tag, Snapshot, Selected Fixtures, etc.
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7 hours ago, kgallen said:
I can find user manuals now - although not down the support rabbit-hole
I've asked MarCom to add a link to the Manuals page onto the Support page...
6 hours ago, iank99 said:I've just had a quick look at the manuals page and can't see any links to Frog/Fat Frog (for example)
...and also add a link to the A-Z (for legacy manuals) onto the Manuals page. This should hopefully be live tomorrow.
2 hours ago, kgallen said:Jon's full time job the last couple of weeks - calming down the old-guard! 🤣
haha, not at all! Keep the feedback coming... (not that I need to say that 😉)
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3 hours ago, iank99 said:
It's very likely therefore (assuming no one did a FB & didn't take regular backups) that restoring a backup should fix the issue in the interim.
Let's not do that... we had so many complaints about the old knowledgebase... the search would ignore any words of three characters or less, so no results for "FLX" "FLX S" FLX S24" or "ORB"! If an article related to multiple products, it would pick one "randomly" to show in the breadcrumb list which created much confusion - you click FLX > Spare Fader and the breadcumb list would show ORB > Spare Fader 🤦♂️
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10 hours ago, Joshua said:
those then get sent via a usb to midi converter
What converter are you using? Does it look like this: http://www.arvydas.co.uk/2013/07/cheap-usb-midi-cable-some-self-assembly-may-be-required/
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Indeed! Solution has seen a lot of changes in the last few years which has given it a new lease of life, but the time has come.
(Software updates will, of course, remain available to Solution users for the foreseeable future).
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Edward and I felt the forum was in need of an autumn-clean (similar to a spring clean... we'll let you decide if we're 6 months late or 6 months early!).
Changes we've made:
- Replies are now allowed on topics within “News & Announcements”.
- "Solution & Solution XL" has been moved to “Legacy Products”.
- “Legacy Products” has been moved up to "Product Support", so it's easier to find.
- Descriptions of the "Data" and "Power" forums have been updated.
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The following forums have been deleted:
- "ZerOS (forum closed)" - the posts have been moved to relevant forums.
- "Fixture Library & Editor (forum closed)" - the posts have been moved to “General Discussion”
- "ZerOS Apps (forum closed)" - the posts have been moved to “General Discussion”
- “Fixture Support and profile requests" has moved location and has a less colourful icon!
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I had another thought last night... which would really upset me as an operator, but may be helpful to @martin-144 (we're all differnet!).
You could set up the GO button so that you have to press SHIFT and GO together to progress the cue.
Hold SETUP and press the GO button. Change the "Button Function" to "Flash" (so long as the fader is at full, this means it won't do anything). Now hold down SHIFT and change the "Button Function" to "Go (Fade)".
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You might find the more clicky buttons under the Multi-Function Faders are less easy to accidentally press? If so, you could copy the cues over to one of those playbacks instead (to do this really quickly - press COPY, then press the Master Playback GO button, then press the GO button of an empty playback on the left hand side).
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5 hours ago, kinous said:
The file is 1.1mb. Do you have another option to send it to you?
I don't believe a file of that size should be stopped by us... is your email provider blocking it? A URL to the file would be fine, if you've found it on their website?
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I've logged a request (ZOS-10842) to hide filetypes starting with "._", to avoid similar confusion in the future.
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We're currently beta testing ZerOS 7.10, which includes the following features:
- Multicell support
- Move functionality added to FLX & FLX S
- Move-on-Dark per-cue (aka "Mark Cue")
- Increase / decrease syntax now scales, and is now available on FLX
- 25+ Enhancements and Bug Fixes
This release is for all consoles and servers running the ZerOS Operating System (FLX, FLX S24 & S48, ZerOS Server, ORB Series, Solution Series, SCD Server & SCD Server Pro, Leap Frog 48 & 96, Phantom ZerOS offline software)
If you would like to become part of our Beta Test group, please send us an email to support@zero88.com including your Forum Username.
Thanks!
Jon
Trivial question about FLXS Phantom
in FLX S24 & FLX S48
Posted
Click on the wheel and then move in a linear line (vertically or horizontally) rather than a circle.