Dark User Commands

From what I can see, I can trigger a macro with a target of a specific user, but that macro only fires if that user is online and active on a device. I'd love it if I could fire macros on a "Dark User."

So let's say that I have a User 7 that I use for manual marking and labeling things. I'd love to fire my regular Record Preset Next macro on User 1, and then have it trigger another macro on User 7 that puts that preset on the command line. Then whenever I have a minute, I can switch to User 7 and hit label without having to look up the number of the last preset that I recorded.

Or I could have all of my manual marking macros fire on User 7 so that if I mess something up while I'm working in the background, I can switch to User 7, look at the command history, and be able to undo only the marking events, instead of all of the marking events I've done and also the commands from the designer that happened in the meantime.

C

  • Which user a macro is executed for is an existing macro property

  • Correct, but if I want to use two different users on one desk and switch back and forth between them, I'd like to be able to fire a macro in the user I'm not currently in to have that command line instruction waiting for me when I switch over. For example, so that I can remind myself to label something when the designer's momentum slows a bit.

    I do have an update though: I've found that you can use magic sheet objects to fire commands on dark users in a limited capacity.

    <U7>

    event:macro 8407

    The above command (terminated) can mark lights on User 7 even when no one is currently in that user.

    Display commands, such as Snapshots and Flexi states, ignore the specified user if no one is active and either affect the user that clicks on the magic sheet object or have no effect. It makes sense that display commands have no effect when that user doesn't have a display, but there's some inconsistency as to whether the console does nothing or changes my screen instead.

    Background macros have no effect, which makes sense because they don't fire on a command line, and the target of the magic sheet object is a command. Foreground macros post to the command line of the user that clicked on the magic sheet object instead of the user that the magic sheet object specifies as the user who is firing that macro. A careful reading of the manual reveals that this is expected behavior, but it would be nice if I could specify the command line that's affected by user instead of by device. Default mode allows this, but I can't tell whether this is intentional from the documentation.

    Macros that include labeling are unable to terminate the label, so if you want to label part 1 "Cue" and part 20 "Mark," then you end up with part 1 labeled "Cue Part 20 Mark," and if you don't go into that user and clean it up, then the label just turns into "Cue Part 20 Mark Select Active Query Live Moves," etc etc.

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