overriding date and time triggers

create pages with buttons to trigger scenes

overriding date and time triggers

Postby Matt26 » 13 March 2018, 19:51

I have two buttons that are triggered by time, set as: "all dates-all days"
and one button "bright white" set to trigger on at "all hours-0 minutes-all seconds" and the other "lightshow" set to trigger on at "all hours-45 minutes-all seconds"
Each of these buttons invokes a timeline setup. It did not make a difference if I made them also "release all buttons", or set each to go off at the on time of the other one, because they made each other release anyway. This may be because they invoke different timelines?

So for 45 minutes each hour, the white setting is on, and then at 45 minutes past the hour, the light show setting comes on for 15 minutes, and and this cycle repeats all day. This works well, except for the days that we don't want that to happen.

My issue is I can't figure out how to override the time settings with another button. What I am trying to do is get the white setting to stay on for several hours, and not let the lightshow setting trigger.

What I would like is a third button that overrides the others, and only invokes the timeline for the white setting, and then stays this way until it is manually changed. This would be used at various random times during the week, But the time-triggered buttons insist on triggering at their appointed times no matter how I set up any other buttons.

How do I do this? I am trying to keep this simple for the client. Clicking "Hold" or "Freeze" did not stop the time triggering either.
Matt26
 
Posts: 12
Joined: 13 March 2018, 19:20

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby support » 14 March 2018, 08:16

how to override the time settings

Sorry but such function does not exist.

We suggest you to do add a third button to switch off the lightshow, with the following trigger "all hours - minutes 45 - second 1".
And the two other buttons must be set with "second 0", instead of "all seconds".
The Lighting Controller
support
Administrateur
 
Posts: 10538
Joined: 07 December 2009, 16:32

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby Matt26 » 15 March 2018, 11:11

We suggest you to do add a third button to switch off the lightshow, with the following trigger "all hours - minutes 45 - second 1".
And the two other buttons must be set with "second 0", instead of "all seconds".


OK, I tried that, but what happens is the new, 3rd button now insists on triggering right after the "lightshow" button, and now the lightship will never play. It is as if having a time trigger gives a button a super priority over any thing else.

How about, since the last action takes precedence in LIVE, how do I set up some buttons to keep initiating themselves automatically, say, every 1 second? That way, when these buttons are clicked, they keep clicking themselves again and again, becoming the last action each time. But, since they won't have a time trigger, it would require initiating them manually the first time.

Then when the time triggered buttons initiate by themselves, if these new buttons that are re-triggering themselves in a loop, they will become the most recent action, and override the time-triggered button.

So, how do I set up a button or macro to automatically loop like that and re-trigger by itself after having been manually initiated the first time?
Matt26
 
Posts: 12
Joined: 13 March 2018, 19:20

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby support » 15 March 2018, 11:43

Please explain clearly your requirement.
Define the wished rules, software side.
Write one line per rule, with the less possible words (usually, the shortest is the explanation, the more clear it is).
Afterwards, we will check if there is a solution with our software, or not.
The Lighting Controller
support
Administrateur
 
Posts: 10538
Joined: 07 December 2009, 16:32

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby Matt26 » 17 March 2018, 16:35

First of all, thanks for helping me with this.

I have two time-triggered LIVE buttons. I want to keep those as they are, but

1- I want another button to override the time triggers of the first two when it is manually initiated, and remain in the override state until it is manually disengaged.

2- the manual override cannot be regularly scheduled, it may be used at unknown times.

3- the manual override must be an "engage-and-forget", with no other action required after the initial click, until it is time to dis-engage it.
Matt26
 
Posts: 12
Joined: 13 March 2018, 19:20

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby Matt26 » 24 March 2018, 11:54

I really want to figure out how to do this with this software, as it is my favorite, and the best one of the laptop-based control programs. Some of the others, like QLC and Lightjams are harder to use and don't have the personalities built into them for all of the lights I am using, mostly Chauvet stuff.

I am trying to get a setup together that I can put into several more of these places that I am installing, but I need to be able to have time-triggered LIVE buttons for most of the time, but then need to be able to override these and have some buttons that are manually triggered that remain in control until I don't need them anymore and can return to the usual time-triggered setup.

How do I get the time-triggered buttons to become dormant, and not insist on triggering, for those times when I want to use other things? I really hope I can do this with ShowXpress, because using something else will be a major pain.
Matt26
 
Posts: 12
Joined: 13 March 2018, 19:20

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby support » 27 March 2018, 14:07

There could be the possibility to add the option (checkbox) "disable calendar trigger", in the main menu "Preferences" (in tab "Main" > section "Live").

Please let us know if this may satisfy your requirement.
The Lighting Controller
support
Administrateur
 
Posts: 10538
Joined: 07 December 2009, 16:32

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby Matt26 » 28 March 2018, 03:38

There could be the possibility to add the option (checkbox) "disable calendar trigger", in the main menu "Preferences" (in tab "Main" > section "Live").


I am trying to make this simple, for clients to operate. They are "civilians" with little or no knowledge of the inner workings of lighting systems so I want them to see only a single page of LIVE buttons. They will be doing the day-to-day operation, without me present.

Requiring them to switch to the main preferences to make something work in one "mode" (no time trigger), and then having to open the preferences again to make it work in the other "mode" ( wth time triggers) is not what I am aiming for. I will not be there when they would have to do that.

Now, when doing the programming, if I could make a single button override the time triggers, that would work. If the contextual right-click menus included "make THIS BUTTON disable calendar triggers of other buttons" when I was creating a button, that would work. I don't know how easy that would be for you to implement, but that is what I am looking for.

An alternative I've already mentioned, is to have a looping function when setting up macros, where macro "A" calls up macro "B" which calls up macro "A" again ad infinitum and if they looped like this once a second, then the 2 macros would always be the most recent action, because every one second one or the other of them would trigger. Can I get a button or macro to automatically call up another button or macro and loop like that with no action needed after the initial click?

Or, in your "sequential list", if I could tell a line of that list to go back to any other line, rather than merely the line that was next in the list, so that I could have line 1 set to follow, then line 2 set to follow, but also set to go back to line 1 (instead of just going to line 3), then the 2 lines would form a loop that kept going until I stopped it. (On some hardware lighting consoles this is standard procedure for setting up a chase sequence.) THEN, if I could invoke that with a button in LIVE somehow, that would be great.
Matt26
 
Posts: 12
Joined: 13 March 2018, 19:20

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby Matt26 » 28 March 2018, 05:05

OK, maybe I have it figured out. If I make 2 macros on a different page, and each macro calls up the look I want to override the "time-triggered" buttons, (so both macros would be the same look) and set each macro's duration as 1 second, and make them each "release all buttons" and THEN make this page of 2 macros chase,

then the 2 macros just bump back and forth between each other at 1 second intervals, and each time they bump, they kill any other buttons on any other pages, including any of the time-triggered buttons that may have initiated.

This feels like a "work-around" rather than a more elegant solution, but for now, it allows my look to stay activated even when the time-triggered buttons go at their appointed times. They get overridden 1 second later by the next macro as it chases. And it is all on LIVE pages, so the operator does not have to know about anything else except the visible buttons.

If you can come up with something better, please tell me. Thanks.
Matt26
 
Posts: 12
Joined: 13 March 2018, 19:20

Re: overriding date and time triggers

Postby Matt26 » 02 June 2018, 19:58

Hello, me again with the two time-triggered buttons. I am installing these systems in a lot of places, so I really want tot be able to solve this this in an efficient way.

So, now I have sort of the opposite problem that I had before. I want one of my time-triggered buttons, which is a timeline, to OCCAISIONALLY stay active until it is manually changed, instead of the usual daily cycle of trading places with the other time-triggered button, which is a different timeline.

My first problem which I sort of solved (see previous posts) was I wanted one of the time-triggered looks, the one that was mostly static and bright white, to SOMETIMES take over and stay until manually changed. Since giving a button a time-trigger confers god-like power unto it and makes it trigger at its appointed time no matter what other settings you may attempt with any other buttons, the second time-triggered look, the active "light show" look, insisted on firing and taking over at its appointed time.

So to fix that, on another page I set up two macros, both the same, with a static look that was a good imitation of the bright white look I wanted to take over, and made those 2 macros chase back and forth at 1 sec. intervals, killing the other time-triggered button when it was invoked, thereby keeping my "static" look active. A work-around to be sure, because it allowed the time-triggered other look to initiate for 1 sec before it was killed by the next macro chasing. Sorry for the long explanation, bu here is why I wrote that:

This time I am looking to keep my 2nd look ("light show") active, and NOT have the bright white look invoke itself until manually chosen. Precisely the opposite problem. Well, why don't I just make 2 macros that have this look, and make them chase, etc, just like I did for the first problem? The difference here is that the bright look could be replaced by a static look, which could re-initiate every 1 second. This other look, the "light show" look, is a 15 min timeline, with lots of moving head movement, and it does not work to have it re-initiate every 1 sec. Some of the moving head chases need 10 secs or more before they begin again. I could find out how much time it needs to cycle (10 sec?), and make the 2 macros chase at that length, but then my other "bright white" look would have 10 seconds to initiate when its time-trigger goes, before it gets killed off by my chasing macros. It is possible I could live with that, but, come on, that is definitely an inferior work-around.

This would be so much easier if, when I was making these new buttons, I could check a box the said "give this button god-like power and ignore whatever any other button thinks it wants to do". Is it a major engineering challenge to make that option available on a button-by button basis during programming?

Another reason this "2 macros chasing back and forth" is not good is that sometimes the entire rig blinks out and back on again when one macro takes over from the other. This may be a function of computer horsepower, but if I wasn't chasing macros, this would not be an issue.

I really want to keep using ShowXpress in these venues, because it really is the easiest and most sensible of the laptop-based programs. I am going to install this in a bunch more places, so if I can't get this to work a bit more elegantly, I may have to try using something else. C'mon, guys, help me here. I am using a Windows 10 Samsung laptop (not new) w/ v.8228 of ShowXpress. I can get more computer specs if I need to.
Matt26
 
Posts: 12
Joined: 13 March 2018, 19:20


Return to Live - Buttons

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests