Sliders in VC should be able to act like Simple Desk sliders, i.e. overriding the current cue level

Request a feature that you would like to see in QLC+.
Explain in details why you would need it and which is your usage case.
mlohrey
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It does make sense in light of your flow diagram.

Perhaps you need a stage 4. This would be a good place for simple desk and then it would become the absolute master.

Thanks for taking the time to consider feature
mlohrey
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This issue doesn't seem to have been resolved: https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/issues/445

Is this related to the order of processing also?
shortylight
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Hi,
thank you, Massimo for your great work. To me this feature is working well and I found no further issues but the reported ones.

According to your questions:
I do not need live switching of the override mode and I also do not need an extra switch for this mode beside the monitoring switch.

Concerning the visual indication of the override mode I would like to suggest a horizontal split of the indicating colour into a light upper and a darker lower part. With this the border could be used to indicate the level of the monitoring value all the time. This can help to do the missing automated fade manually, as you will know where to put the slider to before you press the reset button. Maybe this is possible to do in the first step and keeps things simple.

Martin
siegmund
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Hi Massimo,

great job, this looks really nice.

While testing I was curious what happens when adding another slider in level mode without monitoring enabled. It turns out that the new slider type is not monitoring the changes made by another level-slider (try it in the attached workspace). Don't know if we always talked about scenes but I personally would assume that a monitoring slider has a higher priority than a normal slider.
I discovered I get the behavior I want with some actions beforehand:
0 - raise non-monitoring slider (corresponding monitoring slider won't move - not my expectation)
1 - raise slider in monitoring mode
2 - click it's "X" button
3 - the slider is now following the non-monitoring slider (this would be my expectation)

I don't need live enabling of overriding.
In addition to that, I would request an extra option to switch between two "overriding-modes" (as said in a previous post):
As soon as monitoring is enabled, it is possible to pick from two radio buttons:
  • Override the selected channels until the Reset button is pressed
  • Stop overriding and fade [jump] to the new value if a new value is applied to the selected channels
What would be perfectly cool is the possibility of using an external input for the "X" button.
If there is a visual indication as shorty proposed, then fading isn't so essential for me.
shortylight wrote:Concerning the visual indication of the override mode I would like to suggest a horizontal split of the indicating colour into a light upper and a darker lower part. With this the border could be used to indicate the level of the monitoring value all the time. This can help to do the missing automated fade manually, as you will know where to put the slider to before you press the reset button. Maybe this is possible to do in the first step and keeps things simple.
Anyway, thanks for your great work! :)
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OVR test.qxw
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shortylight
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Hi,

just a short addition:
siegmund wrote:3 - the slider is now following the non-monitoring slider (this would be my expectation)
To be more precise, the monitoring slider is following the non-monitoring slider in HTP mode to the scene's value.

Martin
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mcallegari
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siegmund wrote:While testing I was curious what happens when adding another slider in level mode without monitoring enabled. It turns out that the new slider type is not monitoring the changes made by another level-slider (try it in the attached workspace). Don't know if we always talked about scenes but I personally would assume that a monitoring slider has a higher priority than a normal slider.
I discovered I get the behavior I want with some actions beforehand:
0 - raise non-monitoring slider (corresponding monitoring slider won't move - not my expectation)
1 - raise slider in monitoring mode
2 - click it's "X" button
3 - the slider is now following the non-monitoring slider (this would be my expectation)
This is totally expected instead for what I explained before. Every slider has an ID assigned upon creation, and every slider doesn't know anything about the other sliders.
When they are created (or loaded from a project) they register themselves as "DMX sources" with a certain order, based on their IDs.
If you check the XML file of your test project, you will see that the non-monitoring slider has an ID higher than the monitoring one.
When you start overriding, the slider acquires the highest possible priority, therefore when you stop overriding, they remain with a priority higher than the non-monitoring sliders. That's why they "start to work".

I could make a simple change so when switching from design to operate mode, every monitoring slider will request a higher priority.

As for a "shadow" level when overriding, that's not trivial, cause a Qt Slider doesn't allow that. You can only change the color of the center bar above and below the handle. Nothing else.
I'll see if there's a way to force some mix of colors.
shortylight
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Hi Massimo,

if it is not possible to have this indication by colour, maybe you or someone else has another idea for a smart way to do that job instead. I thought of a display with numbers, maybe as an additional widget, but that would increase the work in designing a VC a lot. That is why I did not sugget it.

Thank's for the explanation of the behaviour of the level mode sliders again. I did not get it right the first time, as I understood that by this
mcallegari wrote:Basically the trick has been to add the possibility to a VC Slider in level mode to request a higher priority to the QLC+ engine master timer, but always before Simple Desk, so it's still possible to override channels from SD.
that all monitoring sliders would already have a higher priority (and ID) compared to other level mode sliders.

Martin
siegmund
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Ah, got it - thank you for the good explanation!
I would expect a consistent behavior, it's a bit mysterious that it is working in another way after some actions that look random to the normal user.
So I'd like to suggest to make this change.
mcallegari wrote:I could make a simple change so when switching from design to operate mode, every monitoring slider will request a higher priority.
mcallegari wrote:You can only change the color of the center bar above and below the handle. Nothing else.
What first came to my mind was to indicate where to move the handle by color. So if the monitoring value equals the overriding one everything is green, but if the overriding value is higher than the monitored one the bar below the handle turns red. Don't know if this is clear enough and I am aware that it's a bit complicated to understand for a normal user of the software but if it is the only possibility we have, we should give it a try.
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mcallegari
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I think I've addressed it all !

I've just committed a change ("owrslider" branch) that:
- gives a visual indication of when the override is in place. Unfortunately I wasn't able to change the slider background to red like in Simple Desk. For now the reset button background changes to red, but I guess that would be enough for you power guys :)
- immediately request a high priority when the monitoring is activated
- shows an additional level bar on the rightside of the slider main level bar. It's a bit ugly to see, but it's functional

Please test and see if the current solution is good.

Windows build available here (4.10.6.39): https://dl.bintray.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/
siegmund
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This looks really promising :)
mcallegari wrote:- gives a visual indication of when the override is in place. Unfortunately I wasn't able to change the slider background to red like in Simple Desk. For now the reset button background changes to red, but I guess that would be enough for you power guys :)
I like it, for me this should be enough as visual indication.
mcallegari wrote:- immediately request a high priority when the monitoring is activated
If you mean this:
mcallegari wrote:I could make a simple change so when switching from design to operate mode, every monitoring slider will request a higher priority.
I'm sorry but I couldn't see this so far. It just behaves the way I already described with my workspace:
siegmund wrote:0 - raise non-monitoring slider (corresponding monitoring slider won't move - not my expectation)
mcallegari wrote:- shows an additional level bar on the rightside of the slider main level bar. It's a bit ugly to see, but it's functional
Actually I don't think this is ugly. Indeed I consider this pretty cool and really good work :)
Just let me add a small inconsistency (I'm certain you worried about but maybe someone else has an idea to solve this): The middle of the handle is apparently connected to the top of the green bar. So in this case the center bar in which the handle is moving and the level bar could not have the same size. I see the point that it looks better if they are at the same height but it's not as much consistent as the other controls are.

Another thing I discovered is that as soon as overriding is taken place and the scene slider is moved again, the green level bar should update, too.

Lastly, do you consider a option of the two overriding options I described?
siegmund wrote:As soon as monitoring is enabled, it is possible to pick from two radio buttons:
  • Override the selected channels until the Reset button is pressed
  • Stop overriding and fade [jump] to the new value if a new value is applied to the selected channels
siegmund
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siegmund wrote:Just let me add a small inconsistency (I'm certain you worried about but maybe someone else has an idea to solve this): The middle of the handle is apparently connected to the top of the green bar. So in this case the center bar in which the handle is moving and the level bar could not have the same size. I see the point that it looks better if they are at the same height but it's not as much consistent as the other controls are.
Nevermind, I saw that the level bar is not directly "physically" connected to the handler. But I still consider this a bit inconvenient.
Anyway, since is not a big issue maybe this is at least something for the to do list.
shortylight
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Hi,

I am a little bit confused by the behaviour of the sliders in “OVR test.qxw”

If I do the following steps I see a kind of inconsistency:

1) Move a scene slider, I see the expected behaviour.

2) Move a slider in level mode, I see no action of the related monitoring slider (not expected, but seen before)

3) Use a monitoring slider once and reset it. From now the monitoring slider behaves in the expected way for both, scenes and level mode sliders. (This would be expected from the very first beginning and is not consistent to point 2)

Beside this I see two further issues, first is that the indicating bar is invisible after loading a qxw file until you use a monitored scene for the first time and second is the missing refresh of the bar as reported earlier.

I hope these issues are only minor bugs and can be fixed easily.

Martin
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mcallegari
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Alright, some more changes:
- now the "shadow" level bar is always shown if the slider has monitoring activated
- now the monitoring continues even during overriding
siegmund wrote:
mcallegari wrote:- immediately request a high priority when the monitoring is activated
If you mean this:
mcallegari wrote:I could make a simple change so when switching from design to operate mode, every monitoring slider will request a higher priority.
I mean both actually. The highest priority is requested either when switching from design to operate mode and when activating the overriding, so that different VC Sliders can override each other

Windows build available here (4.10.6.40): https://dl.bintray.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/

Please test
mlohrey
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I have been testing the latest version on Mac OSX and it seems to be going fine. I have had the odd time when sliders have become unresponsive but DMX is still be produced accurately. I am having trouble reproducing the errors but will see if I can find the pattern.

I like the green level indicator that you have added but wonder if it could be somehow merged into the other. Do those graphics have opacity capability? I was interested to see what it might look like if it was on top of the central slider with some opacity so both could be seen.

That said, it is fantastic and a look forward to using it live...
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mcallegari
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mlohrey wrote:I like the green level indicator that you have added but wonder if it could be somehow merged into the other. Do those graphics have opacity capability? I was interested to see what it might look like if it was on top of the central slider with some opacity so both could be seen.
Trust me, it can't be done. Right now the monitor bar is painted first and then the whole slider (level + handler) is painted on top of it, so there cannot be a mix of the two.

Others tested it ? Can I merge it upstream for everyone ?
shortylight
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Hi,

I am not quite sure if I got that priority issue of the widgets right.

With the latest version it is still a question in which order sliders are created when you start a workplace. If you create just level sliders that act on the same channel, then everythig is fine as long as the monitoring slider is created after the non monitoring one. If it is the other way round, the expected behaviour occurs for the first time when you used the monitoring slider first. I thought from the posts before that the necessary increment of the priority of the monitoring sliders would be done with the switch to operation mode. As to now this is not working in such a case.

Regards Martin
shortylight
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Hi Massimo,

yes I tested the Windows version. As posted before I think there is still one issue.

As a feature I would like to ask for external control of the reset button. With this it would be possible to create a kind of master reset or even a frame reset by using the loop feature of QLC+ and also the use of external controler like BCF 2000 would be supported perfectly.

Again thank you for this work. It was a lot of fun to see things growing!

Martin
siegmund
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Hi Massimo,

I just tested as well and I appreciate the latest changes!
But unfortunately I don't see that monitoring sliders are following non-monitoring sliders without applying the workaround with using overriding at least once as you said:
mcallegari wrote: The highest priority is requested either when switching from design to operate mode and when activating the overriding, so that different VC Sliders can override each other
So obviously requesting highest priority when switching to operate mode doesn't seem to work with my workspace (try using a non-monitoring slider after switching to operate mode, the monitoring one will not follow).

As soon as this is fixed I would say this could go upstream.

Just as Martin proposed, I would appreciate external input, too.
And you still not commented if you consider support the two overriding options I described?
siegmund wrote:As soon as monitoring is enabled, it is possible to pick from two radio buttons:
  • Override the selected channels until the Reset button is pressed
  • Stop overriding and fade [jump] to the new value if a new value is applied to the selected channels
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mcallegari
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Guys, please don't exaggerate with the requests now.
I have already invested a lot of time on this, because I understand it is important for you, but that doesn't mean we need to build a castle over this feature.

To answer Lukas: I believe I have already expressed my opinion in adding new options. QLC+ 4 is becoming uncomfortable, either in using it and in maintaining the code. Too many things to consider means an inrease of risk that touching something will cause regressions somewhere else.
Plus, the more I add to QLC+ 4, the more work I have to do to port it to QLC+ 5, thus the longer you need to wait for it.

That said, today I've done other 2 changes:
- priority request should now be fixed, no matter what the sliders order is
- added external control for the reset button

On the other hand, I noticed a very very bad thing happening on the slider after using it for a while. It becomes completely unresponsive, and I suspect the cause is the additional level bar.
I definitely need to find an alternative, because this is no good at all.

For now, please test if everything works as expected, including saving/loading external control info in XML.

Windows build available here (4.10.6.44): https://dl.bintray.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/

P.S. Where's Matthias (Baer) by the way ?
siegmund
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mcallegari wrote:Guys, please don't exaggerate with the requests now.
I have already invested a lot of time on this, because I understand it is important for you, but that doesn't mean we need to build a castle over this feature.
Don't worry. We just wanted to mention everything that has been discussed in this long thread. I'm sure everyone was aware that most probably not everything will make it to the release. So from now with only the fade and an alternative overriding functionality unimplemented it went quite far and got better than I personally imagined :)
I also see that you've been working very hard on this, so thank you!
mcallegari wrote:To answer Lukas: I believe I have already expressed my opinion in adding new options. QLC+ 4 is becoming uncomfortable, either in using it and in maintaining the code. Too many things to consider means an inrease of risk that touching something will cause regressions somewhere else.
Plus, the more I add to QLC+ 4, the more work I have to do to port it to QLC+ 5, thus the longer you need to wait for it.
I totally see your point here. Since with the new slider you already introduced a new feature to QLC+ I just wanted to make sure that you decided to not implement the alternative overriding option instead of forget considering it.
mcallegari wrote:That said, today I've done other 2 changes:
- priority request should now be fixed, no matter what the sliders order is
- added external control for the reset button
I tested this and it works great (as far as I can tell also XML saving), I found only one minor issue:
External input dialog is visible when creating a new slider which is not in level mode by default. Everything is fine as you put it in level mode and check/uncheck the monitoring option once.
mcallegari wrote:On the other hand, I noticed a very very bad thing happening on the slider after using it for a while. It becomes completely unresponsive, and I suspect the cause is the additional level bar.
I definitely need to find an alternative, because this is no good at all.
I already noticed this, too. But since I wasn't yet able to reliably reproduce it I thought it was some kind of my fault and didn't report it. But to me this seems to occur completely random, just always needs a small amount of time to occur.

[tested on Xubuntu 14.04 64Bit]
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