Messages

1

Latest xLights/Nutcracker software / Re: Linux AppImage Builds - Latest Where??

« on: September 01, 2020, 02:29:54 PM »

Been there.  Cannot find a compiled AppImage, just the source code.  Followed all links I could find.  Even downloaded the source code zip and looked thru it, in bin, bin64, lib, xlights folders...

Am I just blind?  Am I gonna have to compile it myself?

2

Latest xLights/Nutcracker software / Linux AppImage Builds - Latest Where??

« on: September 01, 2020, 10:41:36 AM »

Where can I find the latest AppImage builds for Linux?  Supposedly they are being auto-built starting with release 2020.24 but I've been chasing links and googling and can't find the builds, just the builds 23 and before on Chris's webpage, and latest source code on Sean's GitHub page.

3

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Re: Bug(?) Channel Numbers

« on: July 15, 2020, 07:09:18 PM »

Man, you guys rock!  Thanks for the quick fix!  As for the second part of my question, are the pixel channel numbers indeed off, or am I misinterpreting it?

4

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Bug(?) Channel Numbers

« on: July 15, 2020, 12:33:55 PM »

I've spent the spring working on props and hardware.  Just updated xLights from 2019.71 to 2020.28

One of my A/C channels has a screwed-up channel number and I have tried to fix/reassign it without success.  I have some LED strings tied together and acting like an RGBW array.  The Red channel is DMX channel 97 on Universe 1.  The Green Channel is Red +1 (98), Blue is supposed to be Green +1 (99) but instead is 4294966997 which looks to be a 32-bit Integer roll-over.  White is supposed to be Blue +1 (100) but instead is just 1.  All the rest of the A/C channels are fine.  This no doubt is the cause of the warning: "The setup requires a VERY large number of channels (4294966997) which will result in a very large amount of memory used (15233022 MB)." and also likely why xLights is occaisionally crashing and running very slowly.  (Would probably be even worse if my machine wasn't an engineering workstation with 24 threads and 48GB of RAM).  I opened the rgbeffects.xml file and found that model and didn't see anything in the XML was glaringly wrong.

Also, possibly a bug and possibly not, possibly related -- my pixels do not have the channel numbers I would expect, they are quite a bit higher.  Possibly a controller setup issue?  I think they are correct.

Attached: rgbeffect.xml and some screenshots.  And where is the preferred place to post issues, here or GitHub?

5

Enhancement Requests / Re: Additional keybindings for accessibility by impaired users

« on: July 28, 2019, 10:15:07 AM »

So what section controls the media player, it's display, and it's position?  And do you think this is even doable without tremendous amounts of work?  My C++ skills are kinda "meh".
(I use C/C++ mostly for microcontroller stuff, for Windows GUI stuff, I tend to use C#, haven't tackled the Linux Desktop GUI yet.)

6

Enhancement Requests / Additional keybindings for accessibility by impaired users

« on: July 23, 2019, 08:56:05 AM »

Hey guys!  I really wanted to meet you and shake your hands at the Expo but you were eating lunch and I didn't want to disturb you.  After that, my friend I was riding with was not feeling well and we had to leave.

I have mild Parkinson's and have some trouble using a regular mouse or trackball.  I try to do as much with the keyboard as possible.  As a side effect of my disability, I have collected quite an eclectic assortment of alternative input devices.  You may have seen my post on Facebook regarding using foot pedals to play/pause and ffwd/rewind.

I like the Ctrl-Shift-0 thru 9 to jump to 0%-90% of the sequence, but better yet would be keys or bindings to move back and forth by 25-50ms or one cell (a more finely grained ffwd/rewind).
Ctrl-0 thru 9 to jump to a marker is also nice, but they can only be set by a right click of the mouse, so a way to set them from the keyboard would be helpful.
Ctrl-. and Ctrl-/ are not working for me in Windows (haven't tried it in Linux yet).

I'm also a developer (although C++ is not my strong point) and I downloaded the source code and have been trying to figure out how/where to implement additional key bindings.  I quickly found the obvious KeyBindings.cpp, but can you give me clues on where in the code keystrokes are actually handled (after binding) and where positioning of the play cursor is handled?

And thank you for all your time and effort you put into this free software!

7

Enhancement Requests / Improvements to Timing Tracks

« on: June 09, 2019, 07:13:04 PM »

The first thing I do when I create a new sequence is to create a LOT of timing tracks for all the different parts of the song... main verses, choruses, drum/guitar/sax solos, big cymbal crashes, main singer vs. backup singers, certain key lyrics...
I do this even before I plan too much into what props or effects I want to do for each part.  And making all the timing tracks makes it more shareable/usable for my friends who also have shows with completely different layouts than mine, and makes it easier to rearrange and change things in my own show.

I would like to see some improvements to timing track handling including:

* Rearranging the display order (move up/down).  Also, (if do-able), to intersperse them with the models, and not all at the top.
* Grouping (collapsible).
* Being able to set individual colors for tracks (not just the 5 in color manager).

Thanks again guys, keep up the excellent work!

8

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Re: Odd Behavior (Possible Bug) moving multiple models (Linux)

« on: March 10, 2019, 08:11:46 AM »

The steps in my first post, pretty simple, reliably demonstrate the strange behavior every time.  At least on my machine.  (HP Z600 engineering workstation, dual Xeons, 24 cores, 24GB RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD, Linux Mint 19.04 with Cinnamon desktop.  Linux was just installed recently, so it's still pretty clean and close to default.)

9

Do You Need Help? Post it here / How to install Linux updates

« on: March 07, 2019, 07:28:38 PM »

So not only am I new to xLights (after using LOR for 12 years) but I am also new to Linux.  Was a Microsoft evangelist for much of my career as a developer of Windows Desktop applications, but Satya Nadella has just pi--ed me off too many times lately.  Switched my default boot O/S to Mint 19.4 with Cinnamon.

Installed xLights v2019.8 using the .deb package from Chris Debenham.  2019.8 is still the last version available from his site.  I have downloaded the 2019.15 AppImage, chmod-ed it to executable, and I can run ver 15 from the download folder.  But if I use the shortcut on the desktop or menu, it still runs ver 8.  So I guessing I need to copy the ver 15 AppImage file over top of the ver 8 executable. (?)  But I'll be damned if I can figure out where the ver 8 executable IS and where put the update!  Have run searches, poked around thru bin and lib and other promising sounding folders, to no avail.  Tried examining the link on the desktop but it doesn't tell me where it's linking TO.

Running ver 15 from my Downloads folder does not seem like the proper way of doing things.  What is the proper way to install an update???

10

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Re: Animated GIF causes fatal crash when used with 'Image' model (Linux)

« on: March 07, 2019, 07:03:09 PM »

Loads most of my test gif's without crashing using the 2019.14 appimage.  (Still doesn't animate though.  Sigh.)  With 2 of my test gif's get the message "unable to load suchandsuch.gif" but those 2 are pretty big with lots of frames.

11

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Re: Odd Behavior (Possible Bug) moving multiple models (Linux)

« on: March 07, 2019, 06:37:10 PM »

If I select a group in the models list, it does indeed highlight/select all the models in that group.  However, if I do a normal click-drag only one of the models will move, not the whole group.  (Wish it did!)
Using Ctrl-Drag allows me to move multiple models at once (regardless of whether they are grouped or not) and have them all keep the same relative position to each other -- assuming I Ctrl-Click-Drag on a model other than the first one.  That's why I found the behavior so odd.  If I ctrl-click-drag on the first one, the rest of them move but the first one (the very one I actually clicked on) does not move.  Weird.
Now I admit I'm new to xLIghts, and not really well versed in Linux yet either.  But I developed Windows Desktop applications for over 20 years and so I suspect this is not the intended behavior.

12

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Animated GIF causes fatal crash when used with 'Image' model (Linux)

« on: March 05, 2019, 06:58:42 PM »

So I was thinking about how I might be able to model motorized moving things, such as disco balls and those swirly Gemmy projectors, and self-blinking things such as meteor tubes.  I thought to try an animated GIF, or better yet, an animated PNG (*.apng) since PNG also gives an alpha channel in addition to transparency.

Sigh.  It didn't work.  It will load a .apng without crashing, but only uses the first frame.  An animated .gif however, causes an immediate fatal crash every time in the Linux release 2019.8.  Tried multiple .gif's and .apng's in case perhaps one of them was corrupted.

Ideally it would be awesome if you could fully support these formats including the animation, alpha channel and transparency.

13

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Odd Behavior (Possible Bug) moving multiple models (Linux)

« on: March 05, 2019, 06:44:16 PM »

I have found some rather strange behavior in the Linux version 2019.8 when selecting and moving multiple models.  If you ctrl-drag the lowest numbered model, it stays put while the other selected models move.  I can easily duplicate the problem in a new home folder / layout.

1. Draw 4 trees.  Remember which one you did first.
2. Select all 4 trees.
3. Ctrl-Drag the first tree.  It will stay put while the other 3 move.
4. Reselect all 4 trees.
5. Ctrl-Drag tree #2, 3, or 4.  All 4 trees will move including #1..
(more)
6. Select Trees 2, 3, and 4.  Leave #1 unselected.
7. Ctrl-Drag tree #2.  Trees 3 and 4 will move while tree #2 stays put.

This is especially annoying if you overlap models.  The lowest numbered one is the top one in the z-order so you always end up selecting the lowest numbered one and thus it always does this when trying to move overlapped models.

And while we're on the subject, a related feature request.....  A way to "group" models in the preview window, much as you would in a CAD or Inkscape or other such drawing program.  Since there is already a "group" and "lock" function, perhaps this could be called "glue" or "attach".  Perhaps have a checkbox in group properties that also "glues" the group together so they can be moved and sized together.

14

Nutcracker Models / Re: Copy and resize several models at once?

« on: March 05, 2019, 06:27:07 PM »

You can select numerous models by clicking on the first one, and ctrl-clicking on additional ones, or by dragging a rectangle around them.  You can then move they together by holding ctrl while you click and drag.
Beware, there is an apparent bug or at least some very odd behavior in the Linux version.  If you ctrl-drag the lowest numbered model, it stays put while the rest of them move.

15

Nutcracker Models / Multcolored Model

« on: March 05, 2019, 06:22:41 PM »

So how would you (sort of accurately) model a bush filled with multi-colored lights, such as the regular cheap multicolor LED strings from Walmart?  (Which typically are in 5 colors such as Red, Orn, Yel, Grn, Blu or Red, Orn, Grn, Blu, Vio, or all 6 colors)