What would you like to see in ZerOS?

[Jon Hole]

We’d like a single location to discuss new feature requests - so we’ve created this topic, along with this poll. Vote for which features you’d like next within ZerOS, and add your comments, ideas and suggestions in the comments. Any new suggestions, we’ll add as options within the poll.

Remember – this is all about priorities… voting for everything is equal to voting for nothing. I suggest you vote for around 5 - 8 items in total… but it’s up to you.

We've enabled "make voter names public" to allow the Zero 88 team to vote on their personal preferences, whilst retaining full transparency.

We will review and discuss the results of this poll internally, but please remember that this forum is one of many methods we use to collate feedback. Therefore, we’re not guaranteeing that we will develop the highest-voted features within this topic.

Feel free to add comments and suggestions below. 

Happy voting!

[kgallen]

I've voted for the entries that, based on 5-8 selections, would be of most interest for me.

However there are other entries that are of interest, so I'll group these below so you know there is other "lower priority" interest in some of these ideas. Some of the ideas above I suspect are relatively quick/easy to implement. Others will take a lot of development validation. Maybe it is worth splitting this survey into say 3 categories of easy/medium/big development cost and getting us to vote on them? Each release it would only be reasonable to have one "big" feature, but a number of smaller features could bring good user benefits whilst not incurring a large development cost.

For example the Rig plan/Stage sizing - would be great but the development cost is likely high and would come at the cost of several incremental features.

Improved macros, intensity fanning, import/export are probably functions that build easily on existing features and don't break fundamental desk software architecture.

2nd choice

• Comprehensive Copy/Move
• 'Learn' functionality - depends if I understand right here. Sometimes I will create an auto-follow sequence that links in with an audio track. Possibly this could help here.
• Rig plan layout (I'm assuming this would be a lot of effort to implement, so whilst I've asked for this, I've relegated it to my "second choice" set)
• Stage sizing - for movers this would be excellent, but again, I suspect a big development cost since it needs the above first

3rd choice

• Intensity fanning
• Import/export - for backup and archive (rather than moving to another console automatically)
• Improved macros (I need to use these more - looks like you have some ideas)
• Custom desktop layouts

As covered recently, RGBAW/I/L and Fixture Editor are pretty much at the top of the list for many (Sven will shout at me again for not putting Pixel Mapping here!).

One other for me is dimmer curves (or "taming cheap LEDs"!) and "switch" (snap 0->255 at a given threshold) for controlling relays on stage practicals and triggering other outboard equipment from lighting cues. I don't believe the desk can output MIDI control, so I have to do via DMX.

Regarding partial file load which I ticked as "first choice" - I would like to start building up a library of bits of setups and cues that I can load in. At the moment I have to either wipe the desk and start again or load an old show and delete lots of cues or settings.

I can see Jon wants a new skin. I think many users might consider this a distraction to getting much awaited functional features 😛

[Jon Hole]

15 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Maybe it is worth splitting this survey into say 3 categories of easy/medium/big development cost and getting us to vote on them?

I did think about doing this, and internally we have a "Resource vs Value" spreadsheet that tracks some of these issues... but I fell back to the "KISS principle" to make it simple to understand and vote. But it's a completely valid point.

15 minutes ago, kgallen said:

One other for me is dimmer curves

This is a great suggestion which we forgot to add. I've added it to the list (you can edit your vote, but it involves reselecting the items you selected last time)

15 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I don't believe the desk can output MIDI control, so I have to do via DMX.

FYI - FLX (full size) has the hardware ability to generate and output MIDI. The "Thru/Out" port has a software switch to switch it between "Thru" and "Out". Currently, ZerOS doesn't support outputting MIDI, so this is always set to "Thru" (which is why one of the poll options is "MIDI Out support on FLX")

15 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I can see Jon wants a new skin. I think many users might consider this a distraction to getting much awaited functional features 😛

I'm sure it would! Each item on the list would ideally include a few paragraphs of text explaining the feature. A new skin isn't just for a visual refresh (although I do feel that's needed too). We receive comments about font size and readability, Remote App scaling at certain resolutions, the size of some buttons and keyboards, accessibility (colour schemes, contrast etc) - so it incorporates all of that.

[kgallen]

Thanks Jon. I've now ticked Dimmer Curves and MIDI Out (6 ticks, maybe I dropped one of my previous ones!). Would the MIDI Out be via macros? (and thus hopefully not a huge development impact - main task probably a UI update to put in settings). I ought to re-read up on MIDI...

[Jon Hole]

1 hour ago, kgallen said:

Would the MIDI Out be via macros?

A good question. All these features would need scoping and specifying. With MIDI, I suspect the main uses would be for MIDI TimeCode (Cue X starts timecode, Cue Y stops timecode) and MIDI Show Control (Cue X automatically sends out a GO CUE X MSC message, Cue Y automatically sends out a GO CUE Y MSC message, etc). Whether we also need to allow completely customisable MIDI Messages to be transmitted needs investigating.

[martin-144]

Hi all,

I just did some votes on the survey (it was only 5 or 6) and I don't want to put them into categories like Kevin did.
One thing I would really like to have is "Exclusive Playbacks", to prevent me from house lights getting recorded into cues.
At least this feature sounds like it could prevent that. And I think this would be one of the "not too hard to implement" ones.

And even if I voted for the macOS version of Phantom, I would like to see a native Linux version which probably runs on any common Linux distribution like Ubuntu, Mint or whatever. Even more as it seems the newer versions of Phantom can not be run in WINE anymore. (See my post on it below)

Cheers,
Martin

[Ed75]

Hi all,

 

New to this forum, and relatively new to Zero88 (Zeros) I am an experienced  theatre technician/lighting designer from the Netherlands.

2 months before the Covid19 misery I bought a FLXS 48 2U . used it for a month, and everything was over due to Covid.

Now up and running again, designed and ran a 4-week outdoor show last month, and everything went basically ok.

I had to figure out some things (again) , and now I take my time to dive deeper into Zeros. For me it works the best hand-on or with a show fresh in mind.

Nice to discover I did find out (and used) some of the more complicated stuff myself already, before  watching a Youtube tutorial. 🙃

I updated to 7.9.9 now and fixture library 2.1

I've voted in your poll, because I'm "fresh" into Zeros, and there are a few simple things I start to miss here, (or immediately miss) compared to some other consoles/ software I'm used to. 

Don't get me wrong, I find the Zeros system, and the FLXS an pleasure to work on, though I miss some simple functional things sometimes. 

Things like Park, Midi/OSc functionality, extended color mixing, (including the possibility to mix RGB and CMY seperately) and a few more.

Good you published the poll, it is nice to see   other people agreeing

Happy programming! 😉 Looking forward to some of the most popular (simple) changes.

Cheers, Ed

 

 

[Edward Z88]

Hi @Ed75,

Welcome to the Zero 88 Forum.

Thanks very much for the introduction and for your feedback. That is very useful to hear.

Thanks for voting!

Edward

[kgallen]

@Sven76 you should ask Jon to put all of your 6 ticks on "Pixel Mapping"! 😝

Greetings to you!

[kgallen]

I'd also like to give a slight tickle to an RDM monitor - not sure if this is "Reporting & monitoring of RDM Sensors etc". RDM documentation seems to be as bad if not worse than DMX maps versus firmware version. For debug, being able to see what RDM data is being returned by a fixture would be useful. I believe you have some debug code of this nature internally. Would be useful under a debug section under the Z key. Edward was very helpful last year debugging the RDM codes from a Chauvet fixture that did not seem to return the codes that I'd obtained from the manufacturer - in fact the codes we finally worked out were nothing like the codes given to me by Adam Hall Support.

[Edward Z88]

Hi Kevin,

18 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I'd also like to give a slight tickle to an RDM monitor - not sure if this is "Reporting & monitoring of RDM Sensors etc". RDM documentation seems to be as bad if not worse than DMX maps versus firmware version.

Yes, this would all be part of improved RDM Monitoring/Sniffing, including being able to see sensor values, and possibly custom messages from fixtures.

18 minutes ago, kgallen said:

RDM documentation seems to be as bad if not worse than DMX maps versus firmware version. For debug, being able to see what RDM data is being returned by a fixture would be useful.

18 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Edward was very helpful last year debugging the RDM codes from a Chauvet fixture that did not seem to return the codes that I'd obtained from the manufacturer - in fact the codes we finally worked out were nothing like the codes given to me by Adam Hall Support.

Hence I voted for that option!

Edward

[Sven76]

23 minutes ago, kgallen said:

@Sven76 you should ask Jon to put all of your 6 ticks on "Pixel Mapping"! 😝

Greetings to you!

I already thought about this... 😄 

 

One thing I would also love to see (but of course after Pixel Mapping 😛 )  is to have the ability to have a "FX speed master" and a "FX size master". I never understood why the both are combined and why I would want to have an FX "smaler" just because I want to have it "slower" - if you get my thought... 😉 

 

Best regards

Sven

[kgallen]

17 minutes ago, Sven76 said:

One thing I would also love to see (but of course after Pixel Mapping 😛 )  is to have the ability to have a "FX speed master" and a "FX size master". I never understood why the both are combined and why I would want to have an FX "smaler" just because I want to have it "slower" - if you get my thought... 😉 

Didn't you know - everyone always wants "bigger and faster" (and better!). 🤣

[Sven76]

1 minute ago, kgallen said:

Didn't you know - everyone always wants "bigger and faster" (and better!). 🤣

Ah yes - how could I forget that 😜

[Davidmk]

This is a really good thing, gives you a centralised place to see what the community wish list is - it should help you to please more of the people more of the time (all the people all the time being impossible of course).

Added my top 6, got some possible candidates for another two but not sure which to choose.

Something that isn't there (and it should already be in ZerOS) is the ability to view faders on pages other than the one currently selected on the main desk. If you have wing(s) you should at least be able to view the pages selected on them. If, like me, you are triggering playbacks on pages that are not selected then being able to view those pages would be very helpful. Needs to be in the monitor app as well as on the main monitor (since you can't have multiple monitors).

There are some look & feel improvements suggested. I'd quite like some simple ones like having a full screen channel list (without faders/cues) and/or a custom screen where you can pick one to four existing displays. This would need to work in the monitor app to be useful though.

Another thing that isn't there is MIDI over USB. I know other people have asked about that - so many MIDI devices are USB now the old DIN socket is looking a bit old school and having to buy, power and plug up an interface is a bit tedious. Some improvements to the use of MIDI notes have been aired in other topics as well. I've voted for "OSC triggering & reporting" as an alternative to better MIDI but it'd need to be good and let me trigger and even fade playbacks for example.

I've voted for "CSV import/improved export". Not because I want to use it to share files with other (obviously inferior  ) manufacturer's desks but if you could export and import a full showfile then the possibility exists that you could edit it in Excel and load it back. I'd want to do that for a number of reasons but they might be less pressing if "partial file load" let me load playbacks/cues/palettes from another show file (as long as it had the same patch) and if "ability to update multi cells simultaneously" was pretty universal and as easy to use as a spreadsheet so I've voted for them as well. Editing in Excel carries risks that you end up with an unusable show file but I'd live with that as long as it didn't brick the desk (which it shouldn't).

I've also voted for "rig plan layout" as I've had this on things I've used before, its even better if it mimics some of the fixture attributes (like colour & intensity) but, even without that its much easier to pick the right fixtures from a plan than from the channel list. My memory and eyesight aren't improving with age so I'm forever peering at the screen and scrolling it to find the fixtures I want so I've put a vote in for that.

You'd need to implement some sort of rig plan (even if it wasn't visible) to be able to do "stage sizing" (which I've also voted for) - this would be a busker's dream if it works well enough but I expect it will be difficult to make it work right all of the time - especially in a touring environment. I'll forgive you if you chicken out of this one but not if you deliver something below par.

I've also picked up "fixture editor within ZerOS" - frankly I don't care if it's within ZerOS. Any updated fixture editor that works with the new format that is less clunky than the current one would do (as long as it works on Windows or Android - I'm not a fan of Apple products).

 

[Edward Z88]

Hi @Sven76

On 10/19/2021 at 9:52 AM, Sven76 said:

One thing I would also love to see (but of course after Pixel Mapping 😛 )  is to have the ability to have a "FX speed master" and a "FX size master". I never understood why the both are combined and why I would want to have an FX "smaler" just because I want to have it "slower" - if you get my thought... 😉 

Thanks very much for your request - this would be part of the "Improved effects engine".

Edward

[Edward Z88]

Hi @Davidmk

21 hours ago, Davidmk said:

This is a really good thing, gives you a centralised place to see what the community wish list is - it should help you to please more of the people more of the time (all the people all the time being impossible of course).

Thanks very much for your thoughts and feedback.

21 hours ago, Davidmk said:

Something that isn't there (and it should already be in ZerOS) is the ability to view faders on pages other than the one currently selected on the main desk. If you have wing(s) you should at least be able to view the pages selected on them. If, like me, you are triggering playbacks on pages that are not selected then being able to view those pages would be very helpful. Needs to be in the monitor app as well as on the main monitor (since you can't have multiple monitors).

This suggestion is logged on the system as ZOS-10864, along with other thoughts and improvements to the MFF Window. This would be included as part of the "Custom desktop layouts on FLX / FLX S".

21 hours ago, Davidmk said:

There are some look & feel improvements suggested. I'd quite like some simple ones like having a full screen channel list (without faders/cues) and/or a custom screen where you can pick one to four existing displays. This would need to work in the monitor app to be useful though.

This would also be included as part of the "Custom desktop layouts on FLX / FLX S". This would be applicable to both physical and remote monitors.

21 hours ago, Davidmk said:

Another thing that isn't there is MIDI over USB. I know other people have asked about that - so many MIDI devices are USB now the old DIN socket is looking a bit old school and having to buy, power and plug up an interface is a bit tedious. Some improvements to the use of MIDI notes have been aired in other topics as well. I've voted for "OSC triggering & reporting" as an alternative to better MIDI but it'd need to be good and let me trigger and even fade playbacks for example.

I would agree. OSC is a subject we are very interested in, as a complete network-based triggering system, moving away from needing USB interfaces.

21 hours ago, Davidmk said:

I've also voted for "rig plan layout" as I've had this on things I've used before, its even better if it mimics some of the fixture attributes (like colour & intensity) but, even without that its much easier to pick the right fixtures from a plan than from the channel list. My memory and eyesight aren't improving with age so I'm forever peering at the screen and scrolling it to find the fixtures I want so I've put a vote in for that.

For reference, the "Rig Layout" is currently logged on the system as ZOS-7630.

21 hours ago, Davidmk said:

You'd need to implement some sort of rig plan (even if it wasn't visible) to be able to do "stage sizing" (which I've also voted for) - this would be a busker's dream if it works well enough but I expect it will be difficult to make it work right all of the time - especially in a touring environment. I'll forgive you if you chicken out of this one but not if you deliver something below par.

Logged as ZOS-2282.

Thanks again for your time.

Edward

[Davidmk]

5 minutes ago, Edward Z88 said:

This suggestion is logged on the system as ZOS-10864, along with other thoughts and improvements to the MFF Window. This would be included as part of the "Custom desktop layouts on FLX / FLX S".

Custom layouts duly voted for. Thank you.

[kgallen]

One other "minor" item we've spoken about before: some sort of "version control" on fixture profiles so we know which of our "identically named" fixture definitions are actually being used by the showfile. Current solution is when creating or updating definitions we have to keep putting something in the name like "v2" or "v3". This is a real pain when debugging/updating a new fixture definition as you're never sure what the desk is using!

[Edward Z88]

Hi @kgallen

27 minutes ago, kgallen said:

One other "minor" item we've spoken about before: some sort of "version control" on fixture profiles so we know which of our "identically named" fixture definitions are actually being used by the showfile. Current solution is when creating or updating definitions we have to keep putting something in the name like "v2" or "v3". This is a real pain when debugging/updating a new fixture definition as you're never sure what the desk is using!

Certainly something we don't want to fall off the radar. This is logged as reference number ZOS-8734. I have added another request to this issue.

Edward

[delicolor]

Something our team would like is a simplistic ipad app like an architectural panel that gracefully transitioned to a number of set scenes or effects in an easy to use manner for when the skilled techs are doing other stuff. We have two venue uses a week that require lighting but from states already defined.

Failing that, if the FLX-S booted up reflecting the faders and page/mode used on shutdown rather than defaulting to all faders off regardless of position, that would be useful. We have occasionally reverted to the Solution as we know it will immediately output the last state on bootup.

[keredyelesob]

@Jon Hole When you say 'Fixture builder within ZerOS' will this builder be able to support all of the new features that are getting implemented within the beta and future releases. or will it just be the fixture builder that is available in windows but ported into Zeros? 

[Davidmk]

35 minutes ago, keredyelesob said:

will it just be the fixture builder that is available in windows but ported into Zeros

And I said...

On 10/19/2021 at 6:13 PM, Davidmk said:

Any updated fixture editor that works with the new format that is less clunky than the current one would do

Because, as I see it, the current arrangement (of using old format fixtures) is OK as a stopgap but not sustainable.

[keredyelesob]

13 minutes ago, Davidmk said:

Because, as I see it, the current arrangement (of using old format fixtures) is OK as a stopgap but not sustainable.

100% agree.

[Jon Hole]

13 hours ago, delicolor said:

if the FLX-S booted up reflecting the faders and page/mode used on shutdown rather than defaulting to all faders off regardless of position, that would be useful.

Just so you know, it’s a hardware limitation that makes this feature unavailable, so we could never introduce this as a software update. However, there are potentially other options - such as maybe introducing a “startup state”.

  

11 hours ago, keredyelesob said:

When you say 'Fixture builder within ZerOS' will this builder be able to support all of the new features that are getting implemented within the beta and future releases. or will it just be the fixture builder that is available in windows but ported into Zeros? 

Almost none of the listed features have been fully scooped or spec’d, so at this stage it’s hard to say. However, if we’re doing this, it would cover all the new features. Whether it was a full builder within ZerOS, or a simple builder within ZerOS and a full builder somewhere else, is up for discussion.