xLights 2012d release

[garyh]

preset just allows you to choose it and it should populate the Effect 1/Effect 2 windows.  That way say you want to throw in Merry Christmas in 5 songs, you create the Text Scrolling Merry Christmas once, then you can choose that preset and you won't have to recreate that text effect 5 different times.

[JonB256]

Thanks, Gary. It makes a LOT more sense now.

Is the actual outdoor display brighter than the preview? My preview window seem a little dim.
(I don't have an RGB grid built, yet.)

[dowdybrown]

Thanks, Gary. It makes a LOT more sense now.

Is the actual outdoor display brighter than the preview? My preview window seem a little dim.
(I don't have an RGB grid built, yet.)

The "outdoor display" is a lot brighter - there are no light curves in xLights (yet). The reason I put outdoor in quotes is that I did a lot of my testing with a matrix hanging on the wall beside me

Matt

[dowdybrown]

Gary,

Thanks for the GREAT video. One point of clarification: when creating your model, the Smoothing selection doesn't do anything yet. It will be a future enhancement.

Matt

[jnealand]

One thing I have experienced.  I deleted a bunch of sequences I was testing along with the playlist that I was testing with, but everytime I start up xlights I get error messages stating that the xseq file is missing in the playlist and will be deleted.  I say ok and after the program starts up the old playlist is still there so the delete is not sticking.  I discovered that the problem appears to be that there is still an entry in the schedule xml even though nothing shows up in the scheduler when I go to that tab.  Seems like we need a check that when a playlist is deleted the schedule file is checked and also cleaned up. 

[jnealand]

another issue I had is after I created a whole sequence for my pixel tree and played within the program, I quit xlights.  When I came back to work on it the sequence was gone.  Seems like a save button on the line with the play and other icons would be a good addition.  Also the program should check for unsaved changes before exiting and pop up a warning on screen.  Good thing I did not have much to lose.

[jnealand]

A suggestion.  Put a grid button next to the update button.  As I select and populate a sequence using presets I always have to change the drop down list back to grid in order to put it in the grid.  It works, but could be more easily and quickly done with an "update grid" button.

Matt if you just want errors/problems in this thread let us know where and how you would prefer to receive other feedback.

This is a great tool and I appreciate all the work you have done.

[dowdybrown]

A suggestion.  Put a grid button next to the update button.  As I select and populate a sequence using presets I always have to change the drop down list back to grid in order to put it in the grid.  It works, but could be more easily and quickly done with an "update grid" button.

Matt if you just want errors/problems in this thread let us know where and how you would prefer to receive other feedback.

This is a great tool and I appreciate all the work you have done.

This is a great place to post suggestions and bugs.

I just made the update based on your feedback

Matt

[jnealand]

Not sure about this idea, but you might try making the preview window have a white background.  Then the colors would show up much better.   When doing a window effect or line effect I can barely see any color with the black background.

[garyh]

Sequence tab, would it be possible to either put a # of rotations or an amount of time for each animation?  I do text scrolling and the way xlights seems to work is if I have a 3 min song, and I start a Merry Christmas at 1 second it will scroll the entire length of song.  The only way to stop one effect is to put another in. 

In Nutcracker you specify the duration of the effect and unless I"m missing something I'll have to scroll at least 1 letter or something out to make Merry Christmas only scroll once.

Awesome work on xlights Matt!  Merry Christmas!

[JonB256]

Or, a Timeline based on the length of the Sequence, where you drag/drop onto it and then adjust the endpoint. Any "blank" spots would just be blank (or you drag a Blank effect into those spaces).

I do like the idea of a lighter background in the preview. It is very dark.

[chrisatpsu]

just a quick tip (and a little praise for the program)

I followed Gary's tutorial (a page ago) and I don't need to have a "tune to XX.XFM" sign.

I opened Vixen, created a new blank sequence.
Then converted it to xlights.

then in the sequence tab, I created tune to effect that shows up in the megatree.

then i added a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year ones as well.

Now I have short sequences to just pop in during the show.

[jnealand]

This is a great place to post suggestions and bugs.

I just made the update based on your feedback

Matt

By any chance are you posting those updates into the dropbox link?

[dowdybrown]

just a quick tip (and a little praise for the program)

I followed Gary's tutorial (a page ago) and I don't need to have a "tune to XX.XFM" sign.

I opened Vixen, created a new blank sequence.
Then converted it to xlights.

then in the sequence tab, I created tune to effect that shows up in the megatree.

then i added a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year ones as well.

Now I have short sequences to just pop in during the show.

This will be even easier in the next version. The open button will give you the option to create a new xLights sequence.

Matt

[dowdybrown]

Sequence tab, would it be possible to either put a # of rotations or an amount of time for each animation?  I do text scrolling and the way xlights seems to work is if I have a 3 min song, and I start a Merry Christmas at 1 second it will scroll the entire length of song.  The only way to stop one effect is to put another in. 

In Nutcracker you specify the duration of the effect and unless I"m missing something I'll have to scroll at least 1 letter or something out to make Merry Christmas only scroll once.

Awesome work on xlights Matt!  Merry Christmas!

The reason I used start times instead of durations is that it makes it easier to match up the xLights effects in the grid to effects in your regular sequencer. If you want to stop an effect, you can always set both effects to None and save the None/None effect to the grid.

At Sean's request, I am also working on an export function -- so you could create a single effect and export it.

Matt