Show Cue System

I've received a request from a mwfr (Michel Winogradoff) for more hotkeys - many more!

The first solution suggested by Michel was to allow "Shift+", "Alt+" and "Ctrl+" hot keys but there are issues with this suggestion. Using these modifier keys can clash with Windows or SCS Shortcuts. "Alt+" in particular I strongly discourage as it is used in Windows to trigger buttons or other controls that have an 'access key' (displayed as an underscored letter, eg Pause can be activated using Alt+U).

An alternative solution Michel suggested was 'Banks of Hotkeys'. Each bank would contain its own hotkeys and would be loadable (so you could prepare a hotkey bank for each scene, if you wish). This is my preferred solution. Implementing 'banks of hotkeys' would require at least the following:

• A new tab in Production Properties where the required banks would be defined. By default, every production (including existing cue files) would initially be assigned "Bank A".
• In Cue Properties, for Hotkey activation types there would be a new drop-down list for 'hotkey bank'. This would precede the key selection drop-down list, so that list would be populated according to the selected bank.
• A new sub-cue type to 'load hotkey bank', which would populate the hotkey panel with hotkeys for the selected bank, and obviously also force SCS to only monitor hotkeys for the currently-selected bank.

Any comments? Would you find it useful to have more hotkeys available?

Hi Mike
For most of my shows I use a USB numerical keypad that also has a space bar button like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Numeric-Keypa ... 58b8c2a133
and so also gives a few "hotkeys.

But I have found this although expensive it may be the answer for some users
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Expertkeys-EK-5 ... 4CCZQQV4NC
with 58 programmable hotkeys it might work.
PJ

I like the idea of banks of hotkeys and agree that using modifiers could be a bit of a minefield. It would be nice - not necessarily for having masses of cues, but the ability to have "pages" of different types of cues. For example a page of jingles, a page of comedy sound effects , and another for playback tracks and stuff as well as the ability to add things to a page on the fly :- Kind of useful for more spontaneous events rather than structured theatre or awards shows.

Hi,

that's a nice idea. But it would make thinks more complicated even if I have to switch to the right bank on the right time!?!

I think that would be only usefull if you mabe can switch at any time with for example F1 to F8 between eight banks and use maybe F1 to F12 as hotkeys per bank. So preloading a bank would be not necessary and switching between the eight banks should be possible at any time! But this means SCS has in a worst case to preload 8 x 12 = 96 files into the memory.

But what do you think to use such a kind of controller (didn't test them!?):

http://www.icon-global.com/Keyboards%2F ... iStage.htm

It's relative cheap and it's shipped with a software (iMapTM midi mapping software included for reassigning midi mapping) so maybe you could
use the trigger method 'External (Trigger)'? Then you have aroud 48 external trigger keys?!
If you need more maybe you could use a midi keyboard or you really should look for a specialized sample player (hardware or software)!?

I really would appreciate to use the remaining keys to replace mouse clicks inside SCS and the editor for speeding up SCS and sound setup...!

Regards,

Christian

@PJ and Christian,
Those devices could certainly be useful, as are the X-keys devices. As well as SCS Hotkeys, these devices could handle SCS shortcuts, such as 'Go' and 'Esc'.

@Christian,
Being able to switch banks using something like F1 to F8 is OK except that this will take away from the available list of hotkeys, and some users may already be using those keys.

I'm thinking that as well as having selectable banks there should also be a 'common' bank to contain a few hotkeys that are always available. So if you want a hotkey to 'Fade Out All Playing Cues', assigned to keyboard key F, then you could set this up in the 'common' bank. Obviously any key that's assigned in the 'common' bank (F in this example) cannot be used in any other bank. In this 'common' bank you could also assign keys such as F1 to F8 to select banks 1 to 8 (or whatever you call them).

@Mike: Sorry...you are right: switching banks by Shift+F1 to F8. Then I can use F1 to F12 per bank.
But the device I posted uses Midi Commands so no key is used as a hotkey. You can stay with the common hotkeys on the keybard and use the 48 'midi' keys for special FX sounds.

But yes, a common bank is a good idea to have some hotkeys available independet of what bank is selected.
But then it would be useful to see two hotkeys lists!? The 'common bank' and the currently selected 'user bank'. User bank list has to switch by switching the bank!?

Regards,

Christian