As mentioned previously in the Forum, it would be Very Useful to be able to drag an item from a Cartwall Player to another Player or Playlist, in order to quickly create a sequence of jingles, promos, etc.
The drag would by default be a ‘copy’ rather than a ‘move,’ so that the original item remains in its Cartwall player. However, a Shift+drag would be a ‘move’ which would clear the player it was dragged from; this would be a handy way to ‘rearrange’ a cart set.
To clarify, allowable drop targets would be:
any Player including other Cartwall players
any Playlist
Would that be possible, Torben? Thanks in advance.
I’ll put it on the to-do list. Moving items is not too easy in the current framework, because there is no way of telling the source component to deleted the dragged items yet.
Plus, wouldn’t drag&drop from the cart players interfere with the mouse click START/STOP feature? The player ist started as soon as the mouse button is down. How would I know whether you wanted to drag the item instead?
Ah yes, the mouse click START/STOP, yes… a very good point!
The answer would be a new Cartwall toolbar toggle button, named something like Drag mode, which would work a bit like the existing PFL mode button, and be mutually exclusive with it.
When the Drag mode button is clicked:
PFL mode (if previously active) is disabled first, and the PFL mode button is ‘un-depressed.’
Drag mode is activated (maybe a new background colour setting for this in SKIN.INI, like PFLColor?) and the Drag button stays depressed.
Similarly, if the Cartwall toolbar PFL mode button is depressed, it will ‘switch off’ Drag mode if the latter was active.
Thinking about it, what I’m envisaging is something that works like the COLLECT button in JazlerShow!, if you’re familiar with that application?
I understand where Cad is coming from. I’ve used JazlerShow (used in the news studio at BigL) and the Collect button is handy for stacking-up items in it’s little player window.
Toben, is it not possible to start the Cart on an “un-click” event ? So it’d be possible to “pick-up” the Cart item and put it into a Player/Playlist, but if you stay on it and let go - It plays… ?
Starting the player on mouse down is necessary to allow true accurate instant playback. The delay between pressing and releasing the button would be kind of “unnatural”, in my opinion. An ordinary CD player will also start as soon as you press Play, not only when you release it.
How about defining a special area inside the player control, like an icon in the top right corner or something - when you click the player inside that area, it will not play, but a drag operation will be started instead. There are plans to redesign the player component anyway. I could provide for such a feature then.
I’m also thinking about clipboard integration. A while ago, someone ask for better touch screen support, so that you can copy and paste items by clicking once on the source and once on the destination control. This could be implemented through the clipboard. The player context menu could then also have Copy/Cut items.
By the way, I have never used any other automation software than mAirList. Any feature found in mAirList is truly genuine, and any similarities with other automation software are only by coincidence
Having trialled several systems from Expensive to free, I can honestly hand-on-heart say that mAirList genuinely beats everything within what I consider a sensible price range (i.e. <€1,500).
In other words, Torben: “you haven’t missed out!” by not using other automation software IMHO. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why everything in mAirList just feels so ‘right’ somehow? (Pass!)
BFN
CAD [THINKS: Really no other playout software?!?!! SHEESH! >even more impressed<]
Well, at eldoradio*, we’re using Raduga for unattended operation. And I have tested ZaraRadio when we considered it as a replacement (which would have worked - but the ZaraRadio developer refused or ignored my request to post documentation about the event file format - we would have had to manually enter all of our 100+ events again in ZaraRadio, and thus we didn’t switch).
But honestly, Raduga and ZaraRadio are so different from mAirList - they’re great for pure unattended automation, but nothing you would want to use in live assist mode. (Actually, I once had to use Raduga in a live show. That was when the PSU of the mixing desk in our main studio broke down, and I had to do the show from the control room, where we had nothing but Raduga running.)
Oh, and then I remember that trade show where the regional campus radios produced some live shows from. Someone brought some sort of cart player software from VCS, but it was a horror to use.
I know exactly what you mean about Raduga/ZaraRadio being good for AUTO but, er, ‘lacking’ for ASSIST use.
So many playout software companies ‘out there’ fail to realise that many stations, especially smaller ones, NEED good live assist software and automation is of limited (or zero) interest.
There is also a second category of companies who fail to realise that many smaller stations also don’t pre-generate or prepare playlists or ‘hourly music logs’ etc. in advance of their shows. This is a big flaw in software like StationPlaylist, for example.
So, you often can’t use those programs without a pre-generated Playlist, for what Charlie Davy calls ‘drag’n’drop radio!’ In my case, that is precisely why I love mAirList so much! It really is usable in BOTH types of stations, hence if we ever do change to use the ‘plan playlists in advance’ principle, we can use mAirList equally successfully. WONderful!
There’s nothing wrong with “drag ‘n’ drop” radio - But I felt that it needed a really good un-forgettable description On the flip-side of drag ‘n’ drop, there’s a nice article in the Independant today about The Who having a pop at “Selector Radio”
I’m quite astounded that Torben had little experience of other systems - You wouldn’t think that, given the features and performance of mAirList. ZaraRadio is so-so, and I know a few people that use it - Raduga is OK for auto, and if you want to rename all your filenames with ~ markers(!). A station I know of used to voicetrack with it - No level-ducking, but because it was only the love show, the intros were quiet/soft and could be layered with another audio track without a messy mix - It actually worked rather well.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason why everything in mAirList just feels so ‘right’ somehow? (Pass!)