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Patch Page

I may be the only one but I'd love to see a few things incorporated into the patch page.

1. A search function within the patch window. Over the course of a year or so and constantly patching new fixtures into my show, the fixture list gets a bit long. A search bar would be amazing..

2. Auto collapsing the non-patched fixtures. All fixtures not patched will have their groups collapsed. It sure would make scrolling quicker when you have to adjust something in the patch quickly, such as max intensities..

3. This is really more of the edit fixtures part of the patch window but the ability to auto store "offsets" from a hard value in the programmer would be incredible. Ex: Fixtures mounted facing the side of stage vs downstage so it'll have a 90 degree offset, or something close. Or better yet, for those fixtures hung sideways on a curved truss, all the pan offsets will be different. I'd love the ability, if it doesn't already exist and I just don't know about it, to dial up my "default" position and then have the option to save it to the "offset" in the edit fixture spreadsheet. Hope that makes sense.
  • Isn't the jump bar sufficient for 1 and possibly 2, to get you to a fixture type quickly?
  • I think the only thing close to getting number 3 to work currently would be to change the default values of the fixture in the edit fixture window so when you set position to default it goes to there. If you need different defaults saved per fixture and you can only change the default for an entire fixture type you could create a custom fixture that is just a copy of the fixture but technically a different type with different defaults.
  • What would be great is for default settings in fixture editor to reference a palette. So you record a palette then right click and select as default, the same method as a highlight palette.
  • I've always liked this idea of being able to make live adjustments and setting those to a fixture's default. How would you propose handling the 3 kinds of palettes? Should the palette only apply defaults to fixtures that have Per Fixture parameter values? Or should it extend to Per Type and Global? I could see the latter causing some unintended changes. Or perhaps you would simply select the fixtures where you wanted to apply the default palette. But then how to save it?

    How about a new "Default" editor window similar to "Parked" that holds all your show defaults that differ from the fixture library defaults?
  • Simon, it serves it purpose but when you have a good number of different fixtures that have been patched into your show it makes searching them out a little longer.

    SEL2006, yes and that's what we do but wouldn't it be nice to just dial them up to the position you want as default and then record that position as the default in the fixture editor? Kind of time consuming to do this the current way if say the fixtures are on a radius truss. Then you have to write down all the values and then go to edit fixtures and type them in individually. Depending on the rig, it can chew up some time.

    Just some random thoughts of things I'd like.
  • Sinclair, I suspect it would be simplest to make the palettes per fixture. To be honest I usually think of this as useful for pan and tilt where every fixture would have different values anyway.
  • Just being able to cut and paste from either the programmer or output window into the fixture editor would work for this too.

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