Some general questions (mostly linking to other topics)

The issues found when using the Virtual Console
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benste
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:36 pm
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Hi there,
i'm new to QLC+ and have been trying out some things over the past few days - really great software - thanks to all who contributed to it.
Trying to customize a virtual console to my physical midi input (Zoom R16) i ran into a couple of questions.

1. Where do i find the documentation for "scripted" functions?
2. I need to use the same faders multiple times, therefore i want to modally change between maybe different "Pages" so far i used a Frame with 4 pages and a submaster on each page. However in some occasions the faders control the settings on all 4 pages and sometimes only the current pages fader is moved - What am i doing wrong?
3. I ran into similar issues with the Master Fader - i would like to select a bank for which the fader is currently applied - in the file you will see 3 Frames with different functionality, currently i have one key set to activate each of them, but how can i modally select which window i work on and ideally display this with the buttons on the top right too?
4. coming from digital audio mixing i would love to have a Submaster Page on which my 8 sliders reflect the different ways of adding light (individual lights, chaser, Scenses ...) Is there anyway to do such thing?
5. as you can see i've got the possibilities to click button up/down left/right, preferably i would like to use this to switch the focused frame and modally activate it - is this possible?
Last but not least, my SpinWheel mapped to a one of these things which can turn all the way does not seem to work at all - maybe my self created template for the ZoomR16 is off?

Looking at other inputs -
is there no way to assign multiple e.g. physical buttons to the same button on the virtual console, in particular in regards to multiple input profiles?
e.g. I would like to use the same virtual console with the Zoom R16 as well as TouchOSC or similar software - at this stage this seems to be modally exclusive

Looking forward to get some advices from the rest of the community :)
I've attached the file for anybody to play around and explain.
Attachments
QLight_BadHomburg_ZoomR16.qxw
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Last edited by benste on Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
siegmund
Posts: 703
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:03 am
Location: Germany
Real Name: Lukas

Hi,
welcome to QLC+ and the forum!
benste wrote:1. Where do i find the documentation for "scripted" functions?
See: http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/scripteditor.html
benste wrote:2. I need to use the same faders multiple times, therefore i want to modally change between maybe different "Pages" so far i used a Frame with 4 pages and a submaster on each page. However in some occasions the faders control the settings on all 4 pages and sometimes only the current pages fader is moved - What am i doing wrong?
See: http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/tutorial-multipage.html
benste wrote:3. I ran into similar issues with the Master Fader - i would like to select a bank for which the fader is currently applied - in the file you will see 3 Frames with different functionality, currently i have one key set to activate each of them, but how can i modally select which window i work on and ideally display this with the buttons on the top right too?
To display only one of the frames at the same time at a given place I think again a multipaged frame is the best choice.
You can not select a window to work on other than enabling a specific frame and disabling the others.
benste wrote:4. coming from digital audio mixing i would love to have a Submaster Page on which my 8 sliders reflect the different ways of adding light (individual lights, chaser, Scenses ...) Is there anyway to do such thing?
I'm not familiar with digital audio mixing and can't get what you're trying to achieve. Maybe you can explain it a bit more.
benste wrote:5. as you can see i've got the possibilities to click button up/down left/right, preferably i would like to use this to switch the focused frame and modally activate it - is this possible?
You can use the loopback plugin: http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/loopbackplugin.html
You can use it in connection with scripts or so to enable only one of your frames.
Since from your workspace I assume you're German, have a look at the video tutorial on loopback by Tasaei: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjgdwvK-J6w
benste wrote:Last but not least, my SpinWheel mapped to a one of these things which can turn all the way does not seem to work at all - maybe my self created template for the ZoomR16 is off?
Sorry but I don't get what you want to tell me.
benste wrote:is there no way to assign multiple e.g. physical buttons to the same button on the virtual console, in particular in regards to multiple input profiles?
Again this should be possible with the help of the loopback plugin.

In any case, please have a look at the online documentation http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/index.html and Massimo's video tutorials http://www.qlcplus.org/tutorials.html to get some basics of QLC+.

Regards,
siegmund
benste
Posts: 37
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:36 pm
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Hello Sigmund and thanks for your reply
i've read both the tutorials and the documentation quite intensively over the past days but didn't really find what's missing at this stage.
1. thanks - i guess that's the full functionality then ... i was hoping to be able to script button or fader events, manually reassign on which fader event a fader would listen ... but i assume that doesn't exist yet

2. I've followed the steps, though in some cases there seems to be a bug that the pages are no longer respected and e.g. my faders are applied to all pages at the same time as opposed to the one currently visible - this makes the pages feature rather useless for me at this stage. - It was reproduceable if any on the forum wants to try i can check out the steps i had to do in order to create this issue

3. thanks for the information that modal selection for Frames is not yet possible. In the meantime i've created a workaround by enabling or disabling the frame individually, thinking about it this is in my case even better than having modal selection because this way i can use it as a Grand Master if all Frames are enabled, but i could also set it to match the level of the next Frame i want to edit which will allow me to continue smoothly even without motorized faders.
Though there seems to be a major bug again. When my frame on the upper left is disabled (and i'm intending to change one of the other active frames) changing the page of the upper left frame seems to enable it again. When i switched to page 2 by using one of my midi keys suddenly the submaster is moving again - then i must click the enable/disable button 2 times (enable,disable) in order to have it back locked.

4. Assume you have 4 Frames which reflect different ways of bringing light - e.g. one which has direct access to the channels, one which has faders for scenes, one which controls all chasers, and one which is used to flash scenes.
each of these 4 frames does have a submaster, now i want to be able to have them all next to each other. e.g. fader 1 = submaster lights, fader 2 = submaster scenes, fader 3=submaster chaser, fader 4 = submaster flash
However i don't seem to be able to link to elements in the GUI - this would be possible if it would be allowed to patch more than one input for a universe

5.- resolved as modal exclusive frames are not possible, mapping the keys itself is not too much of an issue
I've looked at the video with the loopback functionality however once again i'm restricted by the limit of 1 input / output per universe

SpinWheel - i'm talking about the thing on the lower right of https://www.zoom-na.com/products/produc ... controller which can be rotated 360degree in 20 steps. However it seems like the Midi command is incorrectly interpreted. I've mapped the SpinWheel to an Encoder type even however e.g. when trying to adjust the time in a Speed Dial it jumps in non linear steps and seems to have odd upper and lower limits

in regards to the multiple buttons
no this is not possible with the loopback plugin because again i can only use each loopback once for input or output. To use it properly i would have to map inputs from my ZoomR16 into loop1 AND inputs from an OSC device into loop1. This seems to be impossible in my installation, even using the same ports with a OSC network using localhost does not work as a workaround because the packages are not arriving in QLC+ (but to on the computer) As this problem seems to be separate from my other questions i've created another post for this subtopic here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=10600

I hope that by now i did get the basics - but maybe i missed something.
siegmund
Posts: 703
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:03 am
Location: Germany
Real Name: Lukas

benste wrote:i was hoping to be able to script button or fader events
You can still use the loopback plugin to trigger buttons by a script.
benste wrote:2. I've followed the steps, though in some cases there seems to be a bug that the pages are no longer respected and e.g. my faders are applied to all pages at the same time as opposed to the one currently visible - this makes the pages feature rather useless for me at this stage. - It was reproduceable if any on the forum wants to try i can check out the steps i had to do in order to create this issue
Make sure not to check "Clone first page widgets" when enabling pages.
benste wrote:Though there seems to be a major bug again. When my frame on the upper left is disabled (and i'm intending to change one of the other active frames) changing the page of the upper left frame seems to enable it again. When i switched to page 2 by using one of my midi keys suddenly the submaster is moving again - then i must click the enable/disable button 2 times (enable,disable) in order to have it back locked.
Good catch! Cause this thread is getting mixed up, I'll set up a separate bug report.
benste wrote:4. Assume you have 4 Frames which reflect different ways of bringing light - e.g. one which has direct access to the channels, one which has faders for scenes, one which controls all chasers, and one which is used to flash scenes.
each of these 4 frames does have a submaster, now i want to be able to have them all next to each other. e.g. fader 1 = submaster lights, fader 2 = submaster scenes, fader 3=submaster chaser, fader 4 = submaster flash
However i don't seem to be able to link to elements in the GUI - this would be possible if it would be allowed to patch more than one input for a universe
Okay, it's getting clearer what you want to achieve. I still think this is possible because you can still set an Input to the loopback universe. Have a look at the attached workspace "multiple inputs_buttons.qxw". Both "control DUMMY" buttons are assigned as external input for the "DUMMY" button over loopback. For both buttons you can set an external input (even on different universes). The same applies for faders (see "multiple inputs.qxw").
The only drawback with this is that feedback is not working properly.
benste wrote:once again i'm restricted by the limit of 1 input / output per universe
See 4
benste wrote:SpinWheel - i'm talking about the thing on the lower right of https://www.zoom-na.com/products/produc ... controller which can be rotated 360degree in 20 steps. However it seems like the Midi command is incorrectly interpreted. I've mapped the SpinWheel to an Encoder type even however e.g. when trying to adjust the time in a Speed Dial it jumps in non linear steps and seems to have odd upper and lower limits
This sounds like a weird/not so typical behavior of the console. So I assume it's not supported yet.
Massimo maybe you can have a look at it?
benste wrote:in regards to the multiple buttons
no this is not possible with the loopback plugin because again i can only use each loopback once for input or output. To use it properly i would have to map inputs from my ZoomR16 into loop1 AND inputs from an OSC device into loop1. This seems to be impossible in my installation, even using the same ports with a OSC network using localhost does not work as a workaround because the packages are not arriving in QLC+ (but to on the computer) As this problem seems to be separate from my other questions i've created another post for this subtopic here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=10600
Again, see 4
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benste
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Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:36 pm
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1. do you have an extended script syntax? Mine only shows - start/stop function, set fixture, system command, wait, comment, random number, system file
or are you talking about a workaround like with the attached files and the loopback plugin?
2. iirc i did this, i might do it again some other day just to be sure, nevertheless this might be a bug in case the problem can be created by copy pasting items as oppsed to cloning them when creating the multi page frame
3. cool - would you happen to have the link so that i can subscribe?
4. the explanation of how you used loopback is pretty helpful, i didnt think about it before that i could have inputs coming on universe 3 but patch it to some functions which are dummys on the loopback universe 2 which then control real fixtures on universe 1 - at least this helps to combine Multiple Controls :)
Thinking about it more thouroughly i also found a dirty workaround for what i was looking for with the masters frame. i created another frame around the one with a submaster in which i have the fake submaster, the real submaster must not be visible. This way both "The Fake" and the true A in the Submasters Remote can control Slide 20 (real submaster of Block A which i could hide behind the other faders. Besides the messy combination of elements this works pretty well, - any explanation why you used scenes for this? Simple Level mode would do the job too doesn't it?
Any idea whether the functionality itself would still be missing in qlc+5 or whether it's worth writing a short Expert mode description on how to achieve these fake masters?

In regards to the spinwheel - i'm happy to provide logfiles on what commands are sent when i rotate it left or right if anybody tells me where to get this with more details than just the midi channel 0061
+ if anybody explains me how to export an input Profile i'd be happy to provide one for the ZOOM R16 which could be included into further releases - assuming that the project is licensed under CC or similar.
Attachments
multiple inputs_submaster.qxw
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benste
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Hello siegmund - here is my experimental file with 2 inputs one is MIDI, the other is OSC
Though it somehow works the workaround using the loopback and set of DUMMY dimmers also means that i can either get the highest or lowest setting of both combined controls. e.g. if midi has 1 completly up i can not use OSC to completly shut down OSC.
I could imagine introducing another fake universe used for a 2nd loopback which using a lot of "single" frames would mix both faders again or at least allow to define a hierachy e.g. physical control as submaster input while all other inputs are slaves in a frame ... but this is getting way too complicated for a regular use setup :)
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multiple inputs_submaster_multiinput.qxw
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benste
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lets move the multiple input discussion to viewtopic.php?f=24&t=10600&p=45799#p45799 and keep the remaining topics in here :)
siegmund
Posts: 703
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:03 am
Location: Germany
Real Name: Lukas

benste wrote:1. do you have an extended script syntax? Mine only shows - start/stop function, set fixture, system command, wait, comment, random number, system file
or are you talking about a workaround like with the attached files and the loopback plugin?
I'm talking about using the loopback plugin.
benste wrote:3. cool - would you happen to have the link so that i can subscribe?
I see you already found but for the record: viewtopic.php?p=45803#p45803
benste wrote: any explanation why you used scenes for this?
I somehow knew you're gonna ask this ;) It's just for consistency. If you have multiple faders for the same channel, they all should be synchronized. This is easily achieved by using scenes. You could use level mode sliders, but when moving one slider, the other will not reflect the change and this mostly not what you want.
benste wrote:Any idea whether the functionality itself would still be missing in qlc+5 or whether it's worth writing a short Expert mode description on how to achieve these fake masters?
Which functionality? Anyway - I don't have any information about QLC+5. Just be patient and let Massimo continue his great work!
benste wrote:if anybody explains me how to export an input Profile i'd be happy to provide one for the ZOOM R16 which could be included into further releases - assuming that the project is licensed under CC or similar.
The input profiles are stored in the user folder: http://www.qlcplus.org/docs/questionsandanswers.html
QLC+ is licensed under Apache v2.0, see https://github.com/mcallegari/qlcplus/b ... er/COPYING
benste wrote:Though it somehow works the workaround using the loopback and set of DUMMY dimmers also means that i can either get the highest or lowest setting of both combined controls. e.g. if midi has 1 completly up i can not use OSC to completly shut down OSC.
This is just a simple HTP behavior. You can try to experiment with setting the channels in the loopback universe to be LTP, but I have not tried this so far.
benste wrote:lets move the multiple input discussion to viewtopic.php?f=24&t=10600&p=45799#p45799 and keep the remaining topics in here :)
Though you are mixing up all the threads at the moment, could you please state what this thread should be about and reflect this in its title.
benste
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>> Let's say all questions in this chaotic thread have been answered or moved to seperate discussions.
As this no longer holds any issues but rather general usage questions please feel free to move this to the respective forum section.
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