Feature Request: Single Channel Slider Group

[moka]

Salut Wolfmix

I think it would be cool to have the option to replace a group with a single slider to simulate a classic hardware dmx controller slider.
This would allow to change the value of a single channel very quickly. maybe with custom min max value but 0... 255 would be a start. the knob could be used to adjust the value. blackout to 0, Buttons to set it to 20%,40%...100% etc

quick drawing of what I have in mind:

Group D would just control a single value and not be affected by the FX functions.

this would allow users to be more dynamic/spontaneous instead of doing a few live edit presets values and open up even more possibilities.

What do you think?

[MPGTechnikTeam]

I definitely up this one! Would be cool to have sliders in software. Maybe have sliders & groups and being able to switch by SHIFT + Wolf button?
I'm not that creative anyway.

[leesinthemix]

This is already possible using hardware faders. You can control any one of the 512 channels in a universe using DMX Force Mode.
Very useful for dimming in theatre/install venues. The one down side is this will overwrite any settings you have saved into a particular preset.

The pitfalls of having this programmed into the unit would be the necessary inclusion of a 'catch-up' for the digital fader. Quite complex programming which I doubt the W1 has enough memory to accomplish.

Simon made a video on how to control simple dimming using hardware faders here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6aZ5yG3EMw

[MPGTechnikTeam]

What's a catch-up, if I may ask?

[axell]

so you will have (virtual) Faders displayed on the Wolfmix screen also, which follow (catch-up) the position of the hardware faders of the external DMX Fader Box, I guess

[MPGTechnikTeam]

I really don't think it'd be that hard to program, because as far as I know, all of the DMX commands go through the Wolfmix from an external slider. The external one just wouldn't catch up with the internal one, even though I don't think anybode would use both on the same channel.

[axell]

The difficulty may also be the hardware platform which is used for Wolfmix. Because it was originally designed for mobility and standalone usage, there is no „general purpose“ computer system inside, but more of a „core“ system (more like a FPGA -Field Programmable Gate Array—). There are many good reasons to use such system for a device like the Wolfmix, but the biggest issue with new and advanced features is the limited memory capacity and the lack of „functional libraries“ to integrate such functions into the software.

[moka]

the idea is to NOT have hardware dmx sliders why would I want to have ugly old school DMX hardware when I have a cool wolfmix?
Especially I don't get the idea of having a hardware slider 'and' linking it to the same dmx slider on the wolfmix

My idea is to have the possibility of a pure virtual slider on the wolfmix to control a single DMX value which is maybe particularly important for your setup.
This would give the possibility for a lightweight minimal hardware setup without additional DMX controllers. For example if I would have a simple setup with just 4 dmx sliders, I could also do that with the wolfmix instead of a 4-channel hardware controller.

Programming:
Seeing what wolfmix software already can do, I estimate this to be not to complicated.
It could be "masked" as a special wolfmix 1-channel fixture. this channel has a min max value like every channel.
If it is added to a group, some magic in the UI needs to happen to replace the FX buttons with the slider etc. The groups already have some logic in it to check if a FX button can be applied to that group so that would needed to be extended a little.
The group could use the standard configuration to allow it to act on flash, blackout etc like a normal group

Extra: Maybe the width of a group is wide enough to display two sliders in a group, therefore a max of 8 sliders could be shown on one screen.

[moka]

Programming: Note that wolfmix already has a percentual display of a value built in.
so for a start it could reuse this as a "round" slider


If this round slider has no touch capabilities the knob would also work for me to adjust the value.

[leesinthemix]

the idea is to NOT have hardware dmx sliders why would I want to have ugly old school DMX hardware when I have a cool wolfmix?
Especially I don't get the idea of having a hardware slider 'and' linking it to the same dmx slider on the wolfmix

My idea is to have the possibility of a pure virtual slider on the wolfmix to control a single DMX value which is maybe particularly important for your setup.
This would give the possibility for a lightweight minimal hardware setup without additional DMX controllers. For example if I would have a simple setup with just 4 dmx sliders, I could also do that with the wolfmix instead of a 4-channel hardware controller.

Programming:
Seeing what wolfmix software already can do, I estimate this to be not to complicated.
It could be "masked" as a special wolfmix 1-channel fixture. this channel has a min max value like every channel.
If it is added to a group, some magic in the UI needs to happen to replace the FX buttons with the slider etc. The groups already have some logic in it to check if a FX button can be applied to that group so that would needed to be extended a little.
The group could use the standard configuration to allow it to act on flash, blackout etc like a normal group

Extra: Maybe the width of a group is wide enough to display two sliders in a group, therefore a max of 8 sliders could be shown on one screen.

Having a hardware slider is more desirable than a touch screen slider, because you can be much more accurate with adjustments and that should always be the desired outcome with lighting. It's a small screen and the slider has 255 data points and is more complicated than working with MIDI faders, which are just 127 data points.

Building the functionality to not use hardware, just because it "looks good" doesn't really cut it in the lighting industry I'm afraid.