Re: [LCtalk] user interface issues in LCedit+

[PragmaLab]

Hello all,

my intention was not to offend somebody when writing my comments on the 
user interface of Lcedit+ and I appolige if I did. For sure support is 
one of the excellent aspects of the Lanbox product and Fokko and Mattijs 
provide quick and useful repsonses on the issues that are brought up in 
this talklist.

Indeed my everyday job is not light-design (although I think I know the 
basics of DMX, have experience in patching fixtures and using them in a 
show ;-)). On the other hand, I did 2 years of research on the Technical 
University of Delft to see what it takes to 'translate' user 
requirements for a lighting board (which has faders, knobs and handles) 
to a PC-appplication (which has none). At the time (2002) I did not 
evalute the LanBox yet, I ordered my Lanbox only last september and I 
was pleasantly surprised to discover that the concept of layers was used 
by the software for that was one of the conclusions of my thesis: use 
layers to cope with complex data.

Perhaps that is why I was a bit disappointed when I tested and evaluated 
the rest of the software and wrote my critical paper to this talklist 
(which was too harsh, I agree). It's not about getting the Lcedit+ 
software behave like 'Word on XP' as Fokko stated. And I suppose that 
PC-games don't follow (G)UI-guidelines, that could be true. It's just 
that I think that with better documentation and improvements in the GUI, 
the Lanbox is probably the best PC-based lighting board I've seen, 
tested and evaluated in years. As Fokko explained earlier, the framework 
does not allow all improvements they want to get in (like an integrated 
Help). Ok, that explains. And indeed, it's very hard (and costy) to 
maintain a software product for 3 platforms simultaniously. I think I'm 
asking too much at the moment. A relative small company like CDS has to 
make choices, I understand. Furthermore, at this stage of development, 
there is hardly a way back when it comes to adding improvements to the 
basic way the user has to use the software (installed base, too many 
lines of code, etc). The result is that the Lanbox is not my first 
choice for a show since I have to learn the basics each time I use it.  
Typically a result of not-so-good UI design (but others would say that 
I'm just not smart enough..... ;-))

Anyway, again I appolige for the way I wrote down my critics in my last 
posting, next time I'll try to be more constructive.

Although Fokko explained the meaning of 'Base Channel' & 'Base DMX add', 
I keep getting confused by the following behaviour:

1) create a fixture, Base Channel set to 120 -> Base DMX add is set to 
120 as well (auto), OK 
2) change 'Base DMX add' from 120 to 10 and the DMX colunm shows only 1 
value per channel (eg '10')
3) leave 'Fixture Setup', enter 'Fixture Setup' and now the DMX column 
shows 2 values (eg '10' and '120')
4) OK, might be a bug. Now I want to get rid of the added DMX 
values.....how? 
5) I use the editfield on the bottom of the patchsheet and delete eg 
'10' for a channel
6) the application doesn't complain, I think I succeeded, leave fixture 
setup, enter it again and '10' is back again.
7) I delete the fixture, create a new one, enter '110' for the 'Base 
channel' and 'Base DMX add' is auto-set to 10 ?
8) the DMX column shows '110' (only 1 value) but some channels have 2 
DMX values (eg, 10, 120, must be from the previous patch).
9) the only way to get rid of the 'double patching' is delete the 
fixture, create a different fixture (model), set that to '110' and 
delete the fixture again

It seems like if you patch a device on 2 DMX-addresses (range of), this 
info (double patch) is not a property of the fixture, but a property of 
the application. When you delete the fixture (un-patch), the info still 
exists in the application.... I hope I explain things clear enough. 

I have no other fixtures, just one. I'm sure I'm missing something, but 
cannot figure out what.......(must be my lack of basic DMX-knowledge?)

regards,

Rob van Lieshout