Let me start by thanking everyone who's hung with Vixen over the past season or two. I know that a good number of people have defected to other applications, including paid-for applications, and I understand the desire to do so. Regular updates dropped off the face of the planet after the failed 2.5 release and it left some people wondering if I abandoned the project. Let me be perfectly clear...I did not, have not, and have no plans to abandon the project. One thing that 2.5 showed was that my policy of reckless patching needed to stop and a rewrite needed to happen. The application was getting into realms that it was not originally intended to do.
I started doing a rewrite from the ground up at some point in 2009. Since then, there have been about a dozen such rewrites until I got to what I felt was a good foundation that addressed architectural needs that were lacking. With that foundation now in place, version 3.0 is moving forward over the coming year, expanding upon Vixen's current capabilities and allowing for new ones.
I want to put initial focus on what's most important and useful to the people who use it, so I've started a poll and seeded it with some functionality that is present in 2.x. I'll add more items to the poll as needed, but this covers some of the bigger things the application does (or attempted to do) to give you an idea of what I'm looking for. I'm not trying to get "look and feel" concerns, that comes much later, but more of what the application does. Examples:
Good:
Variable playback speed
Bad:
The placement of the toolbar buttons for playback speed
And let's get this question out of the way:
Question: "When will it be released?"
Answer: "Sometime next year. No date will be promised."
Okay, onto the poll. Feel free to choose multiple items.
P.S. Assume the scheduling and preview capabilities to be a given (and, yes, the preview will be replaced).
P.P.S. Some mediocre explanations, as requested:
Scripted sequences
One of the available sequence types, it gives you the ability to create a dynamic sequence using C# code.
Remote access
Using the existing Remote Client add-in, you can allow channel and sequence control by people over the internet. You can also do some limited editing of a sequence using a PDA (how 2000, I know) while you're walking around in your yard.
Triggers
The act of triggering execution of a sequence by way of external hardware, generally. Useful in things like haunted houses.
Dimming curves
Not all light strings are created equal. In order to get a linear progression between 0% and 100% intensity, dimming curves allow you to say "when a channel is set to X%, I want it to actually output at Y%". That way, two strings that would otherwise have different intensities at X% can look reasonably the same.
Inputs - recorded to a sequence
A 2.5 construct that allowed for hardware (generally) to create sequence data. Examples would be joysticks and Wii guitars. The data they generate can be recorded to a sequence.
Inputs - live execution
The data generated by inputs can also be immediately sent to the controllers so, for example, pushing a button on a joystick results in a string of lights turning on.
Object models for developers
When you create a plugin, sometimes you want to interact with the application in a structured and predictable way that mimics how the application appears from a user's standpoint to get information and/or affect it somehow. This is going to be my worst explanation of any of this.
I started doing a rewrite from the ground up at some point in 2009. Since then, there have been about a dozen such rewrites until I got to what I felt was a good foundation that addressed architectural needs that were lacking. With that foundation now in place, version 3.0 is moving forward over the coming year, expanding upon Vixen's current capabilities and allowing for new ones.
I want to put initial focus on what's most important and useful to the people who use it, so I've started a poll and seeded it with some functionality that is present in 2.x. I'll add more items to the poll as needed, but this covers some of the bigger things the application does (or attempted to do) to give you an idea of what I'm looking for. I'm not trying to get "look and feel" concerns, that comes much later, but more of what the application does. Examples:
Good:
Variable playback speed
Bad:
The placement of the toolbar buttons for playback speed
And let's get this question out of the way:
Question: "When will it be released?"
Answer: "Sometime next year. No date will be promised."
Okay, onto the poll. Feel free to choose multiple items.
P.S. Assume the scheduling and preview capabilities to be a given (and, yes, the preview will be replaced).
P.P.S. Some mediocre explanations, as requested:
Scripted sequences
One of the available sequence types, it gives you the ability to create a dynamic sequence using C# code.
Remote access
Using the existing Remote Client add-in, you can allow channel and sequence control by people over the internet. You can also do some limited editing of a sequence using a PDA (how 2000, I know) while you're walking around in your yard.
Triggers
The act of triggering execution of a sequence by way of external hardware, generally. Useful in things like haunted houses.
Dimming curves
Not all light strings are created equal. In order to get a linear progression between 0% and 100% intensity, dimming curves allow you to say "when a channel is set to X%, I want it to actually output at Y%". That way, two strings that would otherwise have different intensities at X% can look reasonably the same.
Inputs - recorded to a sequence
A 2.5 construct that allowed for hardware (generally) to create sequence data. Examples would be joysticks and Wii guitars. The data they generate can be recorded to a sequence.
Inputs - live execution
The data generated by inputs can also be immediately sent to the controllers so, for example, pushing a button on a joystick results in a string of lights turning on.
Object models for developers
When you create a plugin, sometimes you want to interact with the application in a structured and predictable way that mimics how the application appears from a user's standpoint to get information and/or affect it somehow. This is going to be my worst explanation of any of this.
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