Suggestion regarding mAirList 1.5.27

English General
1

First, thank you for the innovative use of “Next” being available to start playlist items when no files are playing… this means one less action for automation control, AUTOMATION 1 NEXT can now be assigned to activate “Play” and “Next”. It almost makes “Play” redundant.

Second, the reintroduction of “maxhistorycount” is appreciated, however due to the nature of the LCD screen I am using, may I suggest a configuration regarding colouring of the history entry (or entries if maxhistory is more than 1). A little experimentation proves that an inverse colour works well for me. Background colour = black, and text, light grey or white. Currently (as suggested by Charle Davy if I recall) the “greyed out” convention does not work for me with an LCD screen due to to viewing angles and other idiosyncrasies. A high contrast entry as above is my suggestion.

Lastly, would you please make “Space Bar” available as an option in Hotkeys, as I wish to activate “Next” with the spacebar.

My compliments to you.

2

Chris,
I use 3 17" LCDs here, and I agree that the greyed-out “played” items are a little faint, but I’ve never had much trouble with them. However, a way of changing the colour would be a good move.

Also - Remember that all defined HotKeys to control mAirList are global across the PC and Windows - You’ll not be able to use Spacebar for making a space in another program… I know it’s easy to press to start, but you’ll lose one of the most important keys if you do :wink:

I recently purchased a little USB numberpad from Cherry - It has 4 button-caps at the top which let you insert your labels, but all the keys are programmed via the supplied/downloaded software - I’ve got them mapped to obscure keys like CTRL-SHIFT-F5 - just something that wouldn’t normally be used on a standard keyboard.

It’s wise to steer away from obviously keys and shortcuts (like CTRL-C/V, for instance). As those keys will no longer function within Windows.

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Chris, I use 3 17" LCDs here, and I agree that the greyed-out "played" items are a little faint, but I've never had much trouble with them. However, a way of changing the colour would be a good move.

Also - Remember that all defined HotKeys to control mAirList are global across the PC and Windows - You’ll not be able to use Spacebar for making a space in another program… I know it’s easy to press to start, but you’ll lose one of the most important keys if you do :wink:

I recently purchased a little USB numberpad from Cherry - It has 4 button-caps at the top which let you insert your labels, but all the keys are programmed via the supplied/downloaded software - I’ve got them mapped to obscure keys like CTRL-SHIFT-F5 - just something that wouldn’t normally be used on a standard keyboard.

It’s wise to steer away from obviously keys and shortcuts (like CTRL-C/V, for instance). As those keys will no longer function within Windows.

Thanks for the comment, Charlie

I take your point re global Spacebar.

In BSI’s Simian they use a Spacebar in precisely the mode that Torben has initiated, eg. Pressing the nominated (in my fantasy world, SPACEBAR) key when the programme is not playing a file, starts playing the next file, and when the programme is playing a file, it segues to the next file.

So in order to make it work, like in Simian, is to make the the space bar action non global but specific to when the automation system has focus, and in all other cases space reverts to it’s normal action.

I had a global/non global issue with ZaraRadio (Ctrl/P) which of course is, in Windows parlance, print, yet was also a hot key action for “cue”… So maybe a simple system wide “yes/no” option might be introduced into the hotkeys config as well as Key, and Action.

Your thoughts?

(I hope this makes sense, as it’s 3.40am Sunday here in the colonies)

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Yes, a (Non)Global option would be a welcome addition - The “for” argument is most likely for those who run custom-keyboards that always need to control the software - and the “against”, most likely home-users with a standard QWERTY keyboard.

The other benefit of global keys is if you’ve only 1 screen and multi-task like Internet/E-Mail/Production etc.

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I have just added the ability to specify non-global hotkeys, which only work if mAirList is the foreground window. It was easier than I expected :wink: Will be available in version 1.5.28.

Torben

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… and again, now that the global/non global option has been initiated, may I resubmit my request for space bar to be added so I can assign space bar (non global) to the start automation 1 next action.

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According to the Win32 API documentation, the space bar cannot be used as a hotkey, neither global nor local (the same applies to ESC and TAB). So we cannot use the existing hotkey mechanism for this.

The only way would be to hard-wire the key into the playlist component. I’ll give it a try …

Torben

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Good news: Works like a charm. Will be available as of v.43.

Torben