Couple of ion questions

I can answer a couple of the less difficult ones.

I ran into the time thing once, you should do the time first, then label. For example: Record cue 5 time 5 label cast entrance. 

[undo] will clear an unterminated command line.

I believe there is a [select] key that is the same as [okay] with the mouse. (I think its near where the escape and arrow keys are). 

Hi Richard,

"- Is there a way of editing the same attribute (say dwell) of all steps in an effect at the same time?"

Certainly for absolute effects, when you're looking at your effect's attributes table in Blind, you can select multiple actions and apply the same time or dwell to each action. Command line looks similar to: Effect 1 Action 1 Thru 9 Dwell 0:01 - in this case Action is a softkey, and Dwell gets on the command line by using right cursor key to select the Dwell column. I think the same applies to step effects, but I generally don't use them.

" - selectively update a range of cues - in strand logic 1>6 Update chansIn cue 1>10 @ +10 " 

 You can modify ranges of cues in Blind, e.g. go into blind, select cue 1 thru 10. Hit Enter. Now any channel modifications you make will apply to all those cues. e.g. Chan 1 Thru 6 +% would increase non-zero channels by whatever your +% was set to (default 10). Or you could scale the current channel values, e.g. Chan 1 Thru 6 @ /90, e.g. Chan 1 Thru 6 @ /110

"- How do you shut the desk down without a mouse installed? " 

I know you can, but I don't have our Ion here to try it out - however I think the OK button can be triggered either by using the Select key or by hitting Enter.

Hope that helps a bit, 

David

Hi Richard.... 

 
 - selectively update a range of cues - in strand logic 1>6 Update chansIn cue 1>10 @ +10
(this would increase channels 1>10 by 10% in any cues between 1 and 10 that they were already above 0 in)

You can selectively update, record, etc same as you can on a strand.  eg [1>5 update cue 6 > 10]. This can be done for grps, pallets, presets, and other record targets.
As always, there are many ways of doing things.  If I was trying to do your example on an Ion, I'd go into blind.  Press format until you get the spredsheet view.  Select the cues 1 > 10.  Then enter [1 thru 10 selectActive @ +1 enter]  this would increase channels that have a value above 0 by 10%.  "SelectActive" and "SelectManual" are hard keys on EOS but don't exist on Ion, although I find them very useful.  A work around is to write a macro and use the keyboard shortcuts in the macro editor to get the command up.  If you press help on the console, it will tell you how to display the list of keyboard shortcuts.
 

- Could it be possible to change the font of the channel display? Currently the 6's and the 8's are ver y similar.

Not that I'm aware of at this time.  Maybe Anne or someone from ETC can give you a more definitive answer on this one? 

- Could it be possible to make the background of the live screen in blind a bit more different (say grey) as it is easy to forget you are there are the moment, at the moment the border changes but that isn't too obvious

I believe this is on the list of things to be fixed in a future software release.  I found this a problem as well when I first started using the console but it is something you do become more aware of over time. 

- At the moment when typing text into cues etc, if you hit a command (such as time) it actually inserts the text of that button into the cue

I think someone else already answered this question.  The strand would also do that with some command keys if you were entering a text label.

 - Could holding clear down clear the whole command line - it gets very boring pressing clear lots of times, in strand logic you could do shift+clear which would clear it all..

Pressing [undo] will clear any commands from an un-terminated command line.  Pressing [undo] from a clear command line will bring up the undo screen. 

 - In strand shift + enter would repeat the last command - any option for this?

Again, I believe there will be a "repeat last command"  option in a future software release.

- Is there a way of editing the same attribute (say dwell) of all steps in an effect at the same time?

 Say you wanted to change the dwell time to 0.5sec of all 10 steps in an effect, the command would be [step 1 thru 10 dwell 0.5 enter].  You can also just enter [step 1 thru 10 enter] and then use the arrows to move across to whichever field you wish to edit.  Both "step" and "dwell" are softkeys.  Other fields (such as OnState, InTime, OutTime, etc) are also softkeys.
 

- How do you shut the desk down without a mouse installed? You seem to have to click on OK with the mouse with no keyboard shortcut, I may just be blind but it would be nice to be able to remove the mouse when not required.

Pressing Enter is the same as clicking on OK with the mouse 

- If you do channel x at full remdim enter it is great that you can next/last through all channels, however it would be nice if it only iterated through channels that exist - currently it goes numerically through the whole thing, whether the channels exist or not which makes it a little confusing. Preferably it would iterate through whatever channels are in the current display format (patched/active/chans in show etc)

Yet again, I believe this is on the list to be fixed in a future software release.  v1.4 is due out this month and hopefully some of this things will be addressed.

Hope that provides some answers for you matey

Cheers 

As for the font issue, this has been brought to my attention by quite a few people now.  I will be researching some options for dealing with the visual problems we currently are having with the fonts that we have chosen and will hopefully have a solution in 1.5.

-D