Unpatching parts in Ion

Remko, it was great to meet you in Utrecht.  Thanks again for taking the time.

I haven't had a chance to speak to the developers yet, but here is the plan.

[1] [at] [Enter] - will unpatch all parts.  If you want to unpatch just part 1, you will need to specify that.

[Delete] [1] [Enter] or [1] [Delete] [Enter] - will also delete all parts.  If you want to delete just a specific part, you will need to specify that. 

We have had an ongoing dialogue about the channel patch mode, and if patching new addresses to channels that are already patched should replace those addresses or add to those addresses.  It's a bit of a jump ball.  So, we will be adding a [Replace With] key in patch.  So, if you want to replace current addresses, rather than add to them, you will use that key.   This is also how empty parts will be managed.  

We will look to modify these things all at one time.   ETA is TBD.

It was great to meet you!  Look forward to hearing more from you.

Anne 

I have had it happen a couple of times where I have several addresses in one channel, and I try to add an address to the channel from the RFR, it erases all of the other parts. I think this has happened when working from the console directly as well, but of course I am not at the desk to try it. I dont know if anyone else has experienced this? I will have to try to duplicate this when I get back to work.
 

As with Brian, I'm not infront of a console at the moment, so this info may not be entirely accurate, but when I've been patching by channel, I have found if I don't specify a part, it automaticlly writes to part 1 and will override any address info already in part 1.  When patching by address, it will add the address to a new part of the channel. This is also when I have encountered the whole business of having blank ch parts.

Brent is right that patching by channel currently overwrites whatever is already in part 1. I think that changing it to add a new part and adding a {Replace With} option is a good thing, so long as {Replace With} works on multiple channels. We do a lot of soft-patching at different venues, and I can save so much time by entering an ordered sequence of channel numbers and patching large blocks of the rig on one command line: e.g. Chan 5 + 45 + 23 + 46 + 34 + 51 Thru 59 + 25 ....etc... @ 1/61

This works well at the moment because the existing patch is overwritten - so if this is behaivour is kept by adding the {Replace With} to the command line then all will be fine. Out of interest though is there any specific reason why fixtures such as scrollers, VL5s, tungsten VL1000s have their dimmers on part 2 and the NP part of the fixture on part 1? When moving shows between venues the NP address is unlikely to change whereas the dimmer is almost certainly different. If dimmers were always on part 1 then being able to patch multiple channels on the same command line would be even more useful - in my current show I would be able to soft-patch the entire overhead rig in one command line at most venues.

 Also as part of these proposed patch changes could the syntax be fixed so that multiple DMX-format addresses can be patched to the same channel on the same command line: i.e. Chan 1 Address 1/1 + 1/4 + 1/35 - currently the second / gives a syntax error?

 Thanks, David