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Hello,
Well I have spent about 90+ hrs getting familiar, and creating our shows in Compulive, and have come across some wired things. I have my first show using COMPULIVE on SAT hope all goes well, I am bring my SD2CF for backup... I also wanted to mention some enhancements?

Here is the list:


BUGS??

EDIT SCREEN WOULD RANDOMLY MINIMIZE:
When I go to edit a scene (this happened randomly, could not figure out a pattern), after I would right click on a fixture to change the color, the edit window would minimize to the start bar. Once I clicked it on the bar it would open up but not show, I would then have to click it again to have it come back up. This happened soooo many times it was quite an annoyance.

CYCLES NOT SHOWING ALL BUTTONS:
Read my other thread for this on (Cycle Issue) , but the cycle is missing buttons, until you re-size, then all buttons show up. If you click to another page, then it becomes a blank gray window. You have to close, and re-open, which is a pain since you have to restart the cycle from beginning. Also I had cycles get set to the “off” state, and had no way to turn them back on, unless I am not seeing any on/off buttons, I had to remove the “off” steps, and add them back into the cycle.

CHANNEL CONTROL:
When I would edit a scene and wanted to change the channels control (easy time, easystep, dimmer ,on/off…) I could only highlight the channels from left to right, It would not work the other way if I went right to left. Kind of a pain in the but when you are trying to quickly create scenes.

EASYTIME:
This issue was if I were to highlight a time square, and wanted to select a group of boxes that I had to scroll down with, the cursor highlight when jump randomly on scrolling to different times or channels. Also if I was highlighting from top to bottom, and mistakenly moved up a little when try to scroll, the box would then include the mistaken boxes, as if they were the original selection point. This was really annoying.

EASYTIME SHAPES:
In easy step, when creating any shapes and movements for automated fixtures in the shape generator would always forget to connect the points together to make a complete circle, or polygon. The lights would always jump the last two points, making them look “erratic” missing the point for the transition. I always had to add an extra point to make it look smooth.

COLOR MANAGER:
Color manager would always crash, sent output files to Dylan…

EFFECTS GENARATOR:
Would crash a lot, sent output files to Dylan…



ENHANCEMENTS:


Focus Presets!
Please, Please, Please, this would cut out 2-3 hours on my part at shows if I did not have to go thru EVERY scene to update performers locations for different Venues. If I had a preset that all scenes would relate back to, this would save so much time, and make this application more valuable.

UNDO!
It would be AWSOME if you could create an “UNDO”, a couple of time I would be flying thru the programing, and realize… “What button did I just Delete?”

AUTO SAVE!
It would be nice if you could setup an auto save location for hard drive, and also to a secondary backup source (like a flash drive), because you have to remember , it is a computer, and it is running windows…. Big Grin This would allow auto save however many minutes you specify, and what locations you want to store the copies.

FILE REDIRECTION!
Ablity to change your path where compulive stores the archive, and for saving the show. This will allow you to change the path to another folder.

ABILTY TO CHANGE COLORS ON MASTER PAGE.
This might not be an enhancement, But I could not figure out how to change the colors on the master page, still has the blah colors. All other pages changed, but master still has original colors.

COLOR MANAGER!
Ability to “arrange” your lights they way you have them physicaly. I have 6 vertical LED fixtures containing 8 lights each (total of 48), Color manager would only allow them to be setup horizontal, from left to right, not the way they are seen from top to bottom. This really should be available if you want to do text or shapes on a matrix of LEDs. There is no way to be able to scroll things like test or images, if Compulive does not allow you to layout you fixtures with “YOUR” orientation. I am really missing out on this feature, and effects, It would be nice to be able to do text, and images. DARN!!

ABILTY TO RESTORE YOR PAGES LAYOUT, AFTER AN UPGRADE.
It would be nice if you layout was saved when you upgrade to a new version. Both times I upgraded, I would have to recreate my layout of pages, after an upgrade.

ABILTY TO START A CYCLE WHERE EVER YOU WANT
When you run a cycle, it always starts at the beginning. It would be nice to be able to point and click the press start from that selected step.

BETTER SCROLLING IN EASYTIME
Scrolling left to right, up and down is horrible right now, be nice if they could make it a “little more user friendly” this would save a lot of time during programming, not having to worry about fighting with the selection box!

Well that is the laundry list, hope something will come out of this post (after composing this monster post Wink )
Last edited {1}
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I've come across alot of these issues as well.

EDIT SCREEN WOULD RANDOMLY MINIMIZE:
My work-around - when you open an edit screen quickly move the mouse pointer over that screen. If the pointer is over another window the edit screen gets moved behind it and you have to click the main button then the edit button on the start bar to get it back.

CYCLES NOT SHOWING ALL BUTTONS:
My work-around - If you mouse over the missing or blank gray buttons they will show up again.

CHANNEL CONTROL:
I found the same thing. No work-around.

Focus Presets!
This will be in the next update. I asked about having palettes to work with that when changing a palette it will change in all the scenes. Can't wait for this update.

The other enhancements sound like good ideas. Hope they can add them.
BUGS

On Easyshow, the time line will slow down at 3:20 into the sequence and catch back up to itself around 3:42 ish

It drags behind about a second or two, which throws all my cues off.

Here is the strange thing. It does not happen all the time.

And another problem that has started happening, is that easy show will run into an error and shut down. compu stays open only easyshow will shut down.

I have used this software to run this show for the past three years and every year there seems to be some kind of problem that frustrates me sooooo much, I just want to light the whole computer and dongle on fire!!!!!!!!

now if any one has ANY kind of suggestion, I don't care how crazy they are please let me know,

sorry for the rambling, programmer frustration......

Now let me get some obvious stuff out of the way

YES it is the latest version of the software
YES the computer running it meets all the requirements
YES I did try it on another computer with the same issue

Thanks

Esteban De La Torre
http://www.hbstageproductions.com
Just adding my 2 cents here.

128mb of RAM is what the program wants, without Easy Show. The laptop I am typing this on right now has 4096mb (4 gigs) of RAM, and is currently using 34% of that, 1393mb of RAM. That is just Quickbooks, Anti-Virus Corporate (not bloated), Outlook minimized, and 2 windows of Firefox. That is more RAM then the computer you are using has total, and these are fairly simple, basic programs.

If I clean boot windows and only have my anti-virus running, nothing else, I am using around 16% or 655mb of RAM, a little more then half what the computer in question has. Booting up Hog PC without dongles and letting it idle, my RAM usage shoots up to 24%, 983mb of RAM. I ran a bunch of cue stacks, 5 total, at once, my ram usage was up to 28% 1147mb and CPU usage on a more powerful, dual core was between 30-70% That is more then the total amount you have (1024mb = 1 gig), and that doesn't include the running of drivers for dongles. Hog PC is a little more heavy then Compuware, but Easy Show adds a lot more stress and usage to the system.

You might want to add more RAM. The other big thing that people don't realize adding things like other programs, drivers, and the internet can cause a lot of issues with PC based control. PC based control is really meant to go onto a PC that will do nothing but run that control system and that is it. Adding other programs, drivers, and connecting it to the internet can cause major issues and unforeseen bugs very fast. Even things like updates should be downloaded to another computer and then transferred to the computer running the program via flash drives.
Ya I was gonna say add more ram. the main compu screen itself doesn't take a whole lot of ram but if you add a audio track and easy show with that on one GB it will lag and could cause issues. i had a vista laptop with one GB of ram and was using easy show and it always lagged on me. i would definitely say needs about 2 GB of ram to be more efficient.
Also are you using the 3D viewer when you use easy show at all?
Sincerely,
Okay, just to chime back in here, I built a completely new PC yesterday strictly for Compulive ( As a Backup). It is running :

Windows XP SP3
Intel Duo Core 2.0 GHz
4 Gig Ram, (Although only 3.6 will only be used due to the limitation of XP and a 32bit processor)
256 Meg video card (ATI Radeon)
and a 15KRPM 76Gig SATA hard drive.

Nothing has ever been loaded on this machine. I installed XP, performed all updates, and installed the latest version of Compulive NOV. I first tested all of my bugs without bringing any data over from my existing show... Still all of the same errors, on a clean "New Machine", I mean I have not even installed any Antivirus!, just XP, SP3, and Compulive. Exact same issues.
I then copied my show to the "new machine" and still same issues, no changes. Where do we go from here to get these issues resolved? Looks like the new update is just the Aug 08, beta certified as NOV update????
Confused
You need to find the location that the ses file is saved under. so open the file and then hit save as and either specify a new location or find out where the current one is. i think by default they save in either "My documents or the sl2006 folder. i always save mine in the sl2006 folder.
Also i sent u an email back telling you why i did not receive the files.
Sincerely,
Okay,
I have searched my entire c: drive including the SL2006 directory. I have "view all files and folders" turned on under folder settings. I can not find any sort of .ses files. I have searched for "ses*.*" and "*.ses", nothing. Also I will send you the file as a zip, but just change the extension to .ziz, all you will have to do is rename the file back to .zip when you download it.

Let me know the EXACT name, location, or path for the .ses file. I have a .ssh file when I save the show, but no .ses
Sorry, problem fixed

well kind of

I am guessing that its a buffering problem with the latest version of compuware. the nov 4th

I went back one version of the software, exact same show, and all my lag problems are GONE. so to test my theory I went to another computer with nov 4th same problem, went back one version, problem gone.

so whatever changers were made to the new version effected this.

Yes this computer is soley for compuware, no other programs are running on this, or internet,
Jingles,
Like I have said before in the previous post, I have search my entire hard drive with "*.ses" which means look for all files with a .ses extension. There are no files with .ses on the entire hard drive. Even when I tell it to save, it only lists a .ssh file. Tell me what I am doing wrong.

On another note, I really do not see why I need to send you these files, when I did state that on a brand new machine, with only XP, and Compulive, I can recreate all of the bugs even without my show information loaded. So that means Compulive in its "bare bones" state, has issues even without my show data...
BUGS

On Easyshow, the time line will slow down at 3:20 into the sequence and catch back up to itself around 3:42 ish

It drags behind about a second or two, which throws all my cues off.

.ses = easy show archive file.
Whenever an easy show program is created and saved. it saves as an .ses
The reason your file is needed is because our software developers need to see exactly what your referring to.
Its simple for you to recreate it becasue you know where your problem is, but if we try to recreate it we will not have the same problem. It helps the software developers see exactly what your seeing.

If you don't have an easy show file saved (.ses) then simply recreate another one for us.. save it and e-mail it to Jingles. The sooner we get all this info the sooner we can have a reply.

Best regards,
Elation _Pro

I think you quoted the wrong problem post. I am the one with the time line issues, and I did send my files to James, on november 21st!!! and have still not recieved a reply, I had to figure it out on my own and all that ended up working is going to an older version of compu.

the person asking why they have to send the file is not me.

my problem is I did send my files and still haven't had any help from this site or over the phone
John,

I do not have any .ses files because I do not use Easyshow. I use the "go" button in cycles to execute my cues for live performances. I have never used Easyshow, because I cannot use a time line due to timing. If the band speeds up or slows down, I would be in trouble. That is why I use cycles, and "go" for my cueing.
So I do not have any addtional files to send to Jingles.

Also as I stated before, all of these bugs are reproduced WITHOUT any of my show data loaded into compu live!

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