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Old 01-28-2019, 07:19 AM   #2390
MixMonkey
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoff Waddington View Post
Aha !

In answer to the questions "what is a Zone, is an .axt really any different than an .fxt":

An .fxt is an .axt with an embedded FX name, that's it !

They are both Zone definitions.

Now what is an Overlay...

I sense the Rubik's Cube that is CSI is about to take another twist...

Totally agree about .axt and .fxt not belonging in the surface definition. Probably all that needs to be in the surface definition is the .rst- defining SomeWidget produces/recognises SomeMIDImessage, the ports it uses to connect and how many channels it has. 'Bankable' should probably move to the actions section as well.

Thinking about Zones, a Zone can contain all the widgets in a surface or only some. So in an MCU+XT+XT setup:

Overlay#1 contains: (Zone#1/MCU) + (Zone#2/XT1) + (Zone#3/XT2)

In Overlay#1, the Zones (1-3) contain all the widgets for each surface and is the basic channel setup. The Zone definitions are drawn from the standard .axt files we currently have.

Overlay#2 contains: (Zone#4/MCU) + (Zone#5/XT1) + (Zone#6/XT2)

In Overlay#2, the Zones (4-6) contain all the widgets for each surface, but this time is the Sends setup. The Zone definitions are drawn from the Sends .axt files we currently have. Sends are stepped through using the command we already have (TrackSendBank)

Overlay#3 contains: (Zone#7/MCU) + (Zone#8/XT1) + (Zone#9/XT2) + (Zone#10/MCU) + (Zone#11/XT1) + (Zone#12/XT2) Here it gets a bit more interesting

In Overlay#3, Zones (7-9) contain all the surface widgets for MCU/XT/XT except the 8 rotary controllers on each surface. Zones (10-12) contain only the rotary controllers.

The .axt files referenced by Zones (7-9) reflect this- they have a 'hole' where the rotary controllers would be. This allows the Zones (10-12) to reference .axt+.fxt files that fill the 'hole' with a selected channel/slot FX parameters. FX slots are stepped through using the command we already have (TrackOnFocusedFX MapSingleFXToWidgetsForTrack)

Having thought about this for a while, I wonder whether it makes more sense to have the concept of SubZones rather than SubOverlays. In the above example, Overlay#3/Zones(10-12) could have Sub Overlays (10A, 10B etc?) so that more parameters could be mapped. Obviously you would need to be able to navigate forward and back through the SubZones, just as you can through the FX slots.

I can't help feeling that the above could be achieved with what we currently have with Pages, providing the status was remembered correctly when switching between them.

I had a go at this to try and get more than one C4 worth of controls to map to FX parameters.

I created two pages, identical except one contained a definition for C4_A and the other a definition for C4_B. C4_A accessed .fxt files containing the first 32 FX parameters and C4_B accessed .fxt files containing the second 32.

This worked, up to a point. The problem was the correct location (channel/slot) not being remembered when switching between pages. Also, when I tried to add the Sends Page back in, switching between pages became unreliable.

If you could nail the status/location issue when switching between Pages and provide direct Page access (on radio buttons!) instead of/as well as stepping, I think we'd be golden.

Last edited by MixMonkey; 01-28-2019 at 11:34 AM. Reason: bollocksed up the zone numbers
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