V-Control 4.0.7 with Timeline support

As some of you might know, the Timeline Tasks of V-Control were broken since Version 4.0. I am pleased to announce that timelines are working again. Under the hood, a lot of code was changed and a completely new task model was introduced. Before that, we had a single task class that covers everything, Cuelists, Scripts and Timelines. The new model uses a class for every task type that shares the same interface. This makes it a lot easier to implement task-type specific code. Because all task classes share the same interface, the usage is as easy as in the past (for the programmer, for the V-Control user nothing changed).

Timelines are vertical arranged in V-Control. It is possible to run more than one Timeline at a time.

Each Timeline is “controlled” by a device variable that holds the time code. A connected Time Code Reader, for example, has a device variable “Position”. This variable contains the read time code. The timeline can now use this variable as a time code reference to trigger the cues in the timeline. Each variable that contains time information can be used as master time code for a timeline. This can also be the system time of the system device, or the position of a player.

Using the System Device as Time Code Master:

The System Device provides time and date information. The main purpose is to trigger tasks at a certain point in time and / or date. To implement this, an event is usually created that is fired by a time or date change. The event handler checks whether the desired time and date has been reached and triggers a task if necessary. For daily events, this action can also be solved very elegantly with the Timeline. Let’s say that a few projectors should be switched on every day at 8 o’clock AM and switched off again at 8 o’clock PM.

Create a new Timeline task and select the System.CurrentTime variable as time code master (see the manual’s Timeline documentation). If there are three projectors, create 3 cues starting at 08:00:00:00. Too do this, select the task, select the projector device, enter “08:00:00:00” in the Position field, select the Power On command and click Add Cmd. Now a new row is added to the timeline. Repeat this for the other two projectors. Then change the Position field to “20:00:00:00” and repeat the steps with the Power Off command. Switch to Run Mode and start the task.

Searching Events and Tasks:

Complex systems or shows can consist of hundreds of tasks and events. Under these circumstances it can sometimes be difficult to find the right task or event to edit. V-Control 4.0.7 now offers search fields in which any fragment of characters can be entered. Only those Tasks or Events that match the search criteria will appear in the task or event list.