Moving Light Assistant

v1.3

Version 1.3 contains bug fixes and feature optimisations. There are no changes to the document format, so v1.2 documents can be used in v1.3 or vice versa.

General

  • Online activation to get a license key is now working again.
  • Application will check for a shared license on the computer. This will allow Institutional Licenses to work for all users on a shared computer. The facility to install the license will be achieved by a separate application yet to be released.
  • When registering your computer via email, the computer name is now included.
  • If a document is locked, the temporary working file will be unlocked.
  • Fixed crash when trying to export Rig Data text files.
  • Fixed bug where Image Capture does not work on Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
  • Photos downloaded from a camera are now stored in a folder with the show document name within the ‘CameraDownloads_MLA folder’.
  • Hog 4 Cue List XML files can now be imported using the File->Import Console Data>Hog4 XML file item. Note that the XML currently only contains basic cue information (number, name, trigger, trigger time and comment).
  • The menu File->Import Console Data->Cue List CSV... has been changed to Cue List Text File...
  • Windows OS build in new format and is now dependent upon the Microsoft Windows Universal Runtime. The Moving Light Assistant installer will ensure this is installed.
  • Fixed crash on Mac OS X that occasionally occurred when exiting full screen mode.
  • Fixed bug where show documents with large amounts of console data would not be cleared correctly when importing new console data.
  • Added dialog when confirming the production information to allow an email to be prepared to send to City Theatrical so that we may keep up to date with which productions Moving Light Assistant is being used on.
  • Changed behaviour when closing a document or quitting, in the dialog asking if you want to ‘Save’, ‘Don’t Save’, ‘Cancel’.
  • OSC Setup dialog now allows you to choose TCP as the communication protocol. This is the preferred method for the EOS Family of consoles.
  • New scripts and enhancements to existing ones.
  • New Vx76 XML import that supports large XML files.
  • Additional Canon DSLR Cameras are now supported. See Camera Compatibility for latest list.

Preset Documentation View

  • Fixed bug where it was not possible to edit (draw on) channel photo 4.
  • Fixed bug where clearing the focussed flag for only selected presets did not work.
  • Unused Channels option in ‘Preset Reconciliation’ will update channel indication if a channel that was previously indicated as unused and is now used.
  • Unused Presets option in ‘Preset Reconciliation’ will now allow presets that were set to ignore by the reconciliation to be cleared when the ‘Clear Reconciliation state’ menu is selected.
  • Presets that are set to ‘ignore’ will not be processed for checking of unused channels/ presets, added/deleted channels, updating fixture type or updating preset name.
  • The number of presets being displayed and number of channel focuses is now shown below the preset list.
  • Fixed bug in Fixture view where after checking a focussed checkbox would cause the preset list to scroll to the top.
  • Fixed bug where if the photo mode was locked to channel mode and a channel photo was deleted it would switch to preset despite the mode being locked.
  • Add ability to delete multiple channel photos. When multiple channels are selected and deleted, the last photo for each channel will be deleted.
  • Added additional window splitters that allow the photo display to be enlarged.
  • Added new command ‘Split Preset’ to the Edit menu.

Preset Documentation Fixture View

  • Window splitter added so the photo display/preset list can be resized.
  • Added channel focus note column to the preset list.
  • Focus Notes group box renamed to Preset Notes.
  • Removed channel focus from the Preset Notes (previously Focus Notes) group box.
  • Removed Zoom button from photo display area.
  • View is now scriptable.
  • Order by pop-up menu changed Scenery to Set for consistent use in application.
  • Left and Right arrow keys will select the next and previous photos where a channel or preset has multiple photos.
  • It is now possible to edit the channel’s Note and Cue cells in the Preset List.
  • Added radio button to allow the cue photo to be displayed. It will use the channels cue. Highlight, Hide Others etc. will work on channel photos if a channel ID has been assigned the the drawing elements.
  • The cue number shown in the Preset Notes section is now the presets cue, not the displayed channels.

Preset Photo Zoom Window

  • Dialog has been changed to a window so it can remain open and no longer modal.
  • Window is now resizable.
  • Added window splitter between the photo and channel list so it may be resized.
  • Channel list now has the Focus Note column.
  • When the window is open, it will follow preset selection in the Preset Documentation view. It will not follow channel selection while open.
  • When the window is closed, it will no longer copy the previous channel selection in the window back to the Preset Documentation view.
  • Fixed issue in the ‘Photo Zoom’ window where it was not possible to click the next button to see the additional photos for the preset/channel.
  • In the ‘Photo Zoom’ window, the keyboard left and right arrow keys can be used to step through the additional photos for a preset/channel.

Cue List View

  • A new toolbar button has been added to hide or show cue parts in the displayed cue list.
  • A new toolbar button has been added to hide to show annotations (drawings) on the cue photos.
  • Window splitters added to resize cue info/photo area.
  • The image in the Follow Console toolbar button has been changed as it is no longer specific to MSC triggers. EOS can use OSC as a trigger.

Cue Photo Zoom Window

  • It is now possible to drag the cue HUD display by click dragging the top bar of the HUD. If the HUD is not dragged, it’s behaviour is as before and will adjust its position when the window is resized. Note this it is not possible to drag the HUD out of the photo area.

Rig Data View

  • Added PS & OP (Prompt Side & Opposite Prompt) choices when editing the Orientation column.
  • Fixed bug where changing the fixture type of a fixture did not add the fixture profile into the show document.
  • Filter pop-up menu now includes columns User 1 to User 6.
  • Fixed bug that would cause out of range DMX addresses when adding fixtures and specifying a negative offset.
  • Changed edit behaviour for offsetting values. Use ++ or — instead of single + or -. This is to fix issue when using negative numbers in the X, Y & Z location cells.

i.e.
++10 Will increment selected cells by 10
—5 Will decrement selected cells by 5

Wheel Load View

  • When a wheel image is dragged and dropped out of the application (i.e. to the desktop), the file name will now include a ‘.jpg’ file ending.

Channel Usage View

  • Fixed bug introduced in grandMA2 v3.1.2.5 imports that would not show correct preset usage for global presets.
  • Added Show Only Unused option for processing to only show channels that have no intensity greater than zero.
  • Fixed bug where specifying a cue range was not correct if the ‘To’ or ‘From’ cue did not exist in the cue list.
  • Fixed issue where if a single channel is specified as the ‘From’ channel with no ‘To’ channel specified, it did not work as expected.

Preset Data View

  • Added window splitter to allow the preset list and channel list to be resized horizontally.

EOS CSV Import

  • The reporting of ‘Unexpected LEVEL_REFERENCE_TYPE’ to the import log has been removed. It was discovered that some shows with a lot of colour palettes would take a very long time to import when reporting this message.
  • The import progress dialog progress bar will now show the progress of the data import correctly.
  • The time taken to complete the import is now added to the import log.
  • Fixed issue where import would be missing data if there were no cues in the CSV file.
  • Number of target entries are now logged to the log window.

grandMA2 XML Import

  • Optimisations have been made to the XML import to reduce the time taken to complete the import.
  • The time taken to complete the import is now added to the import log.
  • In the import dialog a label has been added… “Typically you need to choose the ‘gma2’ folder.” due to users experiencing issues when they choose the incorrect folder.Vx76 XML Import.
  • Optimisations have been made to the XML import to reduce the time taken to complete the import.
  • The import progress dialog progress bar will now show the progress of a Stack import.
  • The time taken to complete the import is now added to the import log.
  • Fixed bug on Windows OS when an imported sequence already exists in the show document. Multiple dialogs asking how to proceed would appear (and ultimately ending in a crash).

Vx76 XML Import

  • The XML importer for the PRG Vx76 console has been rewritten to support large (multi gigabyte) XML files.
  • The import options dialog now has options to allow you to choose which cue data Stacks to import.

Photo Export

  • When exporting photos with drawings, they are no longer scaled. The photo (and drawing) will be exported at the resolution they are in the show document.
  • All files are now appended with a ‘.jpg’ file extension.
  • All four channel photos are now listed for exporting.

Camera Control – Direct Show

  • Improvements have been made when using DirectShow (only applicable on Windows OS).

Vx76 Console Dialog

  • It is now possible to send text data to the Vx76 patch Location, Tags and Notes fields. This will only work correctly on Vx76 software version 4.2.1 onwards.

Importing Timecode List

  • It is now possible to import timecode list exported from InqScribe or Reaper applications.

Reports

Channel Data Report

  • A new report for reporting the cue data for a channel. You will be prompted for which cuelist/sequence and which channel you want in the report. The report will only show the first 15 parameters of data. It can show more, but the report would have to be edited.

Preset Documentation Report

  • Fixed bug where the channels listed for a particular preset photo was listing all channels.
  • Fixed bug where not all channel photos were displayed if there was more than 1 for a channel.
  • Added PresetImage1, PresetImage2, PresetImage3, PresetImage4.
  • Added ChannelImage1, ChannelImage2, ChannelImage3, ChannelImage4.
  • It is now possible to generate a report on a specific range of presets. A dialog now appears when a Preset Documentation report is chosen to select either all presets or a specified range.

Wheel Load Report

  • Fixed bug where Effect Wheel 3 would not always show wheel graphic.
  • Added ChannelList field which will contain a list of the channels using the wheel load.
  • Added ChannelCount field which will be the number of channels using the wheel load.
  • Added FixtureList field which will contain a list of the fixtures using the wheel load.
  • Added FixtureCount field which will be the number of fixtures using the wheel load.

Generic Report

  • Added preset priority text handling.
  • Added PresetDoc_Channel_List & PresetDoc_Fixture_List fields.

Scroller Moves Report

  • Fixed bug where it could in some instances get stuck in a loop.
  • Added support for Hue/Saturation based fixtures such as the ETC Source 4 Lustr+.

Channel Usage Report

  • Added UsageSceneName field.
  • Added fields to access preset usage

AllPresetCount
PositionPresetCount
ColourPresetCount
GoboPresetCount
AllPresetName
PositionPresetName
ColourPresetName
GoboPresetName

Cue List Report

  • In the options dialog when building a cue list report, it is now possible to specify a start page number. This will only work with the report.page_number place holder. This is useful when having to combine the pdf documents of several cue list reports of a cue list into one pdf document.
  • There is a new report, CueList_Image which will do a cue photo per page. Useful if you need to send someone a document of cue photos from the production. 

Scripting

  • New functions PresetDocView:IsLastPresetRowSelected and PresetDocView:IsLastChannelRowSelected.
  • New function RigDataView:IsLastFixtureRowSelected.
  • New function CueListView:IsLastCueRowSelected.
  • PresetInfo has new property PriorityName to get the user defined name for the priority.
  • New Dispatch Actions for PresetDocView:DispatchAction(“Sort By”, “Preset ID”),
    PresetDoc:ViewDispatchAction(“Filter By”, “Preset ID”),
    PresetDoc:ViewDispatchAction(“Filter Text”, “Courtyard”)
  • New function PromptChoiceDialog to allow a customisable dialog to be presented to the user to allow the them to choose between 2 choices. Useful to present a dialog for the user to decide if the script should continue i.e. Is the taken photo acceptable ?
  • New function FormatTimecode.
  • New functions FomattedTimeToMilliseconds and FormattedTimeToSeconds.
  • New functions SendAppleEvent and SendVx76AppleEvent.
  • New function TimecodeToMA2TCTime.
  • New function PromptPopupMenuDialog.
  • Added FileType popup menu in output window to set file type when saving.
  • Added OutputFileType comment macro.

Specific details about the new functions are on the MLA Wiki page www.wiki.movinglightassistant.com/wiki

Script Changes

EOS Preset Auto Photo

  • Added a variable two second delayPrePhoto which is how long the script will wait for the lights to get into position before the photo is taken.
  • The delay after a photo is taken is now longer to allow for the Preset Documentation view to update showing the taken photograph.
  • A new variable has been added. recallFromCue. When the recallFromCue is set to true (it is by default), channels will be recalled from their focus cue prior to the photo being taken.

MA2 Preset Auto Photo

  • Added a variable two second delayPrePhoto. Adjust as required.
  • The delay after a photo is taken is now longer to allow for the Preset Documentation view to update showing the taken photograph.
  • Two new variables have been added. recallFromCue (as above) and whitePreset. When the recallFromCue is set to true (it is by default), channels will be recalled from their focus cue prior to the photo being taken. When this option is set, the whitePreset variable should be set to the preset identifier of your white colour preset so the lights are set to white before the photos are taken.

EOS Build Focus Cuelist

  • This script can be used to build a cue list on the console containing presets in the preset documentation list. This is useful for having a cue list to step through to focus a show i.e. on a tour. See the Scripts chapter for more details.

MA2 Build Focus Cuelist

  • This script can be used to build a cue list on the console containing presets in the preset documentation list. This is useful for having a cue list to step through to focus a show i.e. on a tour. See the Scripts chapter for more details.

HOG4 Export Cuelist XML

  • This script is used to generate a cue list XML file that can imported in the Hog 4 console. It will build the list from the currently displayed cue list shown in MLA. It will include timecode times. A timecode cue list can be imported from InqScribe or Reaper and then exported to the Hog 4. See the Scripts chapter for more details.

Vx76 Export Timecode CSV

  • This script is used to generate a CSV file that can imported in the Vx76 console. It will build the list from the currently displayed cue list shown in MLA. It will include timecode times. A timecode cue list can be imported from InqScribe or Reaper and then exported to the Vx76. See the Scripts chapter for more details. Vx76 Console software version 4.3 onwards supports importing of Timecode scripts.

Other Fixes

  • ‘CueList EOS 1 Image’ Report. Fixed focus, colour and beam times to be displayed in correct place on page.
  • Corrected release notes that stated an added preset/channel while reconciling would be indicated in blue, when it should have said green.

Fixture Profile Updates

Martin

MAC Viper Profile – Corrected DMX Profile channel counts.

Clay Paky

Alpha Profile 700 – Added colour part numbers.
Alpha Wash 700 – Added colour part numbers.

Many additions.

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