The Avolites Discussion Forum

After using Titan 2.0 for a few shows now I have found a few issues which are listed below. While these issues have caused me a few problems the reliability and ease of use on V2.0 is much better with a lot of great features and I am pleased with the way Titan is going.

1. It seems like you can't connect to a playback when fixtures are selected in program mode. This means that I have to clear the programmer before I can connect.

2. I have tried to edit some pallets because I had saved some wrong attributes into them. In the edit pallet mode I selected the fixtures and turned off the undesired attributes then re-saved the pallet but this doesn't seem to get rid of these attributes next time I use those pallets. Am I doing something wrong?

3. When repatching fixtures and swapping the start address between two fixures, I repatch the first fixture which parks the second one then I repatch the second fixture. When the second fixture is then located most of the attributes do not respond or seem inverted and need to be changed manualy on the wheels before it responds properly again.

4. I am not so keen on the way the pallets work on Titan (although I realise some people probably prefer it this way) where all the pallets are not affected by which attribute button is selected. This means that pallets end up spread over multiple pages and selecting lights on one page, selecting pallets on another page multiple times soon means that either wrong attributes or wrong fixtures end up in the programmer.
The ideal for me would be if there was an option to turn this on /off or even better would be to be able to have global pallets on the bottom 30 preset buttons but the top 30 linked to the attribute button selected.

Hope this makes sense...

Tim

Some interesting points I think.

1) I believe this is by design and essentially as Classic functioned. I tend not to encounter this since I operate almost entirely using quick palette, but I understand the problem. A crucial difference with Classic was the connect menu option to re-connect wheels. So maybe it would be useful to have a similar function, perhaps in addition to a logic that connects wheel operation on most recent demand - ie fixture selection gives attribute control, but a subsequent connect/playback gives chase? However, I do see conflict regarding auto-connect since some users might argue they want to retain fixture control while selected...

2) I don't tend to use edit palette function so I'm not sure but will look. In the meantime my method is simply to enter or remove relevant data and then merge the palette. This does work.

3) Erm...

4) Personally I do like this, although I have been using the quick palette/paging method since 2005 on the old boards so it has become habit. As I understand the reason for the change was that it was all too common to have the wrong attribute selected and end up with no recall. I'm sure you'll agree this does happen! However, filtering by attribute mask is clearly valuable too. My proposal is to implement a mask function when holding a palette key (similar to clear or locate). From here you could either momentarily mask the recall or permanently set a mask (ie. with option auto reset/remember mask).

niclights wrote:4) Personally I do like this, although I have been using the quick palette/paging method since 2005 on the old boards so it has become habit. As I understand the reason for the change was that it was all too common to have the wrong attribute selected and end up with no recall. I'm sure you'll agree this does happen! However, filtering by attribute mask is clearly valuable too. My proposal is to implement a mask function when holding a palette key (similar to clear or locate). From here you could either momentarily mask the recall or permanently set a mask (ie. with option auto reset/remember mask).

Don't agree on your option. I was using the old way of recalling pallets by selecting the attribute I wanted to recall and then use only one hand to, for instance, flip colours for my heads. The other hand is usable again for playback operation. What you're proposing requires two hands (or a very large one ) and I really dislike things that require both hands during playback.

Thanks for your replies.

1) It is not the auto connect but the connect button that I would like to connect to the chase which would overide fixture selection until an attribute button is pressed or fixtures reselected. I believe this is how classic worked.

2) I think I tried this. How do you remove data from a pallet?

4) I guess after years of using pallets the old way it is hard to change.
The reason I prefer it the old way is not so much for attribute masking but because once you have say 25 position pallets, pallets for each gobo, colour, prism, iris, rotations and focus / zoom then you are soon into second / third page and it was preferable to change this on the attribute buttons rather than the fixture page buttons.
Like I said the ideal for me would be to have the bottom row of pallets as global ones which can be any attribute (as it is at the moment) and the top row to change according to the attribute button selected (as classic worked), Then I would have the best of both worlds.

2) Should be the same as you were doing except not using the Edit Palette function:

Clear.
Select fixture(s).
Select attribute
Press OFF
Select attribute or group of attributes from softkey.
Press Store Palette.
*Press [Set Mask]
*Toggle attribute bank keys to include relevant groups or include all.
Exit
Toggle record mode to [channel in programmer] or [mixed] of required.
**Check Shared/Normal is correct.
Select palette to update (either press grey preset key if assigned or type existing number which will present update softkeys).
If prompt on merge is enabled select merge or press associated grey key again.
Clear.

*Setting mask is only necessary if previously changed to exclude relevant groups.
**An example of this being wrong might be that you specifically only want to remove data from a single fixture in a set of the same type. Automatically this will be interpreted as a Shared palette and will apply to all. Toggle to Normal to ensure this only affects the selected fixture.

Looks complicated when written in detail but is very quick in reality!
The Edit Palette function differs in that it gives you a preview.