Element parking

the clarification is in the manual itself:

"Channels and parameters may be parked and unparked from the live display. To park from the live display, you will use the {Park} softkey"

and:

"{Park} [Enter] [Enter] - clears all parked channels".
NB that it's {Park} and not [Park]. the difference in between {softkeys} and [hard keys].

i hope that helps

How perfectly foolish of me. There are two park keys; one soft and one hard. The hard one was so glaring at me on the console I just figured it was the park key period. Thanks for showing me my fault. Next time I will pay more attention to hard vs soft realizing there can sometimes be more than one of the same key for whatever reason. Maybe one day I might learn why.

Jeff, the keys across the top row of Element are for display access only. This was to make it more like legacy ETC consoles. That is the reason for the two different keys - one access the park display and the other allows parking from live. That is why there is a patch key, but also an address/dimmer key - while that function is shared on the bigger desks. Element was targeted at Express users - who were accustomed to dedicated display keys for critical functions.
Hope that helps.

My current pet peeve is overused words that mean more than one thing, to different people. IE. Channel, level, lamp, truss, mode. We have so many in this industry and I'm sure you can add to the list. When it's jargon it just gets worse because nobody is the final authority. I find with some thought there are other words to use when needed.

Perhaps the display button could be called "Parking" as in this is where you Park.

I think the opposite on this--The industry does have standard terminology that has been in the works for longer than I have been born. This is taught at both the college and professional level and universally used throughout the theatre industry in the US. It does change drastically in TV/Film and also once you go outside of the US but I think the terminology used in the theatre and that of consoles is fairly constant.

The function of Park has been what it is now for twenty plus years, a feature to Park a channel or address. I would never say to someone "Please go parking the channel", but I would definitely say "Please go park that channel." Park is both a function and a display--while I know this differs slightly between Element and the rest of the platforms we really try to keep the language the same between the desks. Since Element is the stepping stone to the rest of the Eos product line, introducing different words or buttons here would be problematic when having that opportunity to move up to the next desk.

My original question certainly went off in a direction I never expected but interesting at the least.

I would like to ask one more thing regarding two parks, parkings, no stopping zones, whatever terminology :-)

I went back to the church and looked at the Element console. I put it in Live mode and there was NO {park} softkey. They only way I could get a {park} softkey to come up (S5) was to hit the Park hardkey which opens the Park screen and puts the console in blind mode. Then usning {park} enter enter works. As long as the Park screen is open in a tab then the softkey shows up in Live. So still a bit confused as to the quickest way to unpark what someone accidentally parked not knowing what they were doing.

Also would like to know if there is any way to disable the park feature so no one does that at this venue, other than remove the keycap which would still leave the button sticking up.

Jeff, I just checked on Element Nomad and I was able to Park a channel in LIVE very simply. 2 @50 {PARK}(which is S4) ENTER.

Thanks for that but I wasn't asking about parking in live. I wanted to know how to completely clear all parked channels. When I put the actual console in Live mode I can't find any {park} softkey. It only comes up when I first use the hard key Park to open the parked channels window. Then I can press the softkey S5 Enter Enter and all parked channels clear.

I think what you're asking is about unparking whilst the rest of the desk is in live mode.

Park appears on two different soft keys.

If you clear the command line, the soft keys should be:

1) Select Last 2) Select Active 3) Select Manual 4) Park 5) Fader Control 6) Page Subs

If you then press displays, they should be:

1) Effect Status 2) Color Picker 3) Patch 4) Setup 5) Browser 6) Magic Sheet

In my first example, that S4 gives you park on the command line. In the second, it puts you into blind park mode.

The thing you need to make sure of is that you have cleared the command line. You can press the displays button a lot, which opens and closes the CIA, but this will keep you in the displays soft keys mode. Pressing clear will return you to the soft keys mode you want - and S4 is the park command you are looking for.

If in doubt, clear the command line (shift + clear) and then press clear once after that.

The soft keys are contextual and sometimes to change the context requires a little use of the clear key!