Vixen is not open source and you have not been abandoned there - so why think it might happen to HLS?
Joe
Joe, i am new to this like you. I just started feb of this year. I did look at old posts and there were sequencers started for about a year and then the developer stopped, bug fixes stopped. Sometimes the developer just stopped responding to pm's and such.
I saw these programs that started, lots of excitement and jazz and then dissapeared
Prancer
Olive Studio
I think there were others.
LSP and LOR are commercial
Vixen has been around for 5 years but doesn't look to be released thru open source.
xlights is on sourceforge and is opensource.
I will be releasing Nutcracker fully on sourceforge by the end of the summer.
Learning a new sequencer is alot of investment for this group of hobbists. I am aware that the nutcracker is yet another prohgram that people would have to learn, invest in and hopefully find useful.. I think the big concern , when we are 201 days from Christmas 2012 is the amount of time they put into a sequencer will yield a show.
There is lots of angst about LSP 2 vs LSP 3 , when will 3 be released?
Vixen 2.1 vs Vixen 3.0. Things will need to be relearned.
To all of you, we do understand the concern. For myself, I built Nutcracker so i could make my first christmas show with something other than a Home Depot Mr Christmas 6 channel controller. I still plan on having my show for my megatree be built by Nutcracker. I have stated that Nutcracker will always be free. After it is fully posted and supported thru sourceforge, you will know that more people than just myself can use it and it will remain free.
I think Joe's program is different in concept but is just as easy to learn for a newbie like me than some of the others. LSP seems to have the most whistle and bells. It is like a European sports car (with sometimes the same reliability issues), i think i just need a reliable car to get my job done. I think Nutcracker has numerous issues. I dont like that i cant have a mouse to drag and drop, you dont get immediate feedback, as if it were built into a sequencer. .etc, .etc. It currently is filling a gap in the sequencer world. I think in a year or two the sequencers will have the effects i have and more built in. Why would you need Nutcracker then? So , my product probably has a shelf life of a few years.
i built it for myself, it will probably help some of you this year.
Joe, the only thing stopping me from using HLS is that i need it to drive the E1.31 RJ controller with his pixelnet protocol. RJ is on the road to texas for the june 16 Academy. I know in Jul or Aug the two of you will probably talk and you will then support his etherdongle. I know David of LSP fame built a driver for it in like 1 day. Xlights has a driver for it. RJ has published his protocol on his webpage (
http://diylightanimation.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3554.0;attach=4452)
I am , as of today, probably going to use Vixen 2.1 and xlights. I will wait and see if my hardware can be supported in HLS. I would then move. You and i do Rapid application development. I am at over 100 releases of Nutcracker since i started in feb. I believe you have released more. I think most people will notice that when an issue is raised or an enhancement requested our turn around time is measured in hours or days.
I think it would be worth a few hours of everybodys time to try HLS. If it supports your hardware and you have vixen, i think you are pretty set. HLS can read the vix file.
I may later this year make an uber converter. Select any two from this list:
LSP 1.8, LSP 2, LSP 3, LOR S2, LOR S3, Vixen 2.1, Vixen 2.5, Vixen 3.0 and HLS. Convert sequences between any in the list. This would remove the barriers for trying new sequencers. We will see what the fall brings.