View Single Post
Old 12-01-2019, 12:36 PM   #5470
Funkybot
Human being with feelings
 
Funkybot's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: New Joisey
Posts: 5,990
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington View Post
There's another reason - naming.

As you know you are free to call your widgets whatever you like -- but -- that has implications -- you can successfully use only Zone files that follow your naming convention.
Hi Geoff, that is actually something else I think a front-end for .mst creation can help with. You can force a best-practice naming convention for widgets on the users and get more consistency from user-created .mst files.

Let's imagine a gui-based "Create a Device" screen existed and worked similar to below. So I'm a newbie, setting up a new CSI, and I don't see my device as an .mst file, but there's a "create a device" option/button, which I click...

1. This takes me to the "Create a Device" screen - I've got a blank screen with two buttons, Learn, and Cancel (maybe a greyed out Save button)

2. I hit the Learn button

3. I move a parameter in my hardware

Result: a graphical representation of the learned parameter now appears on screen as a rotary or fader by default. There's a "Widget Name" at the top. The current value is displayed at the bottom. The save button becomes active.

4. I can right click the new Widget on the GUI to change the type of Widget. Example: This is a button, or this is a rotary/fader, this is a jog-wheel, etc.

5. I can click on the name and you give me a couple of naming options based on a set list of conventions (Fader 1, Left or Right Fader 1, Top or Bottom Fader 1, Middle Fader 1, Top-Right or Top-Left Fader 1, etc.).

6. The numbers used in the names would automatically increment each time that type of widget was added.

7. If there were different Press/Release options for a button, I could right-click the visual representation of that widget and set that up here too.

8. I can go on happily/quickly learning parameters/creating widgets.

9. I click save when I'm done - enter the Manufacturer name, enter the product name, and done.

10. Now, once done, I've got a nice clean .mst built behind the scenes adhering to a best practice naming convention. Something any dumb end-user (talking about myself here) could do without needing to so much as crack open a manual. The important thing is, if it's easy to create, it should increase the likelihood of users mapping and sharing more devices.

Anyway, that's been my idea as to how this could be implemented. Studio One's "Control Link" setup works very similar to this and is very intuitive (but not as fully featured or flexible as what you're trying to do here).
Funkybot is offline   Reply With Quote