Spotlight Export Fields

[Rick Martin]

Spotlight only has two "user fields" in the OIP (for lighting instruments) to add data to, and I need more, so that I can move more Lightwright info into the drawing. When you export instrument data, and export every single field possible (for example Label1-Label8) there are many fields that are blank (in my files at least). Can I use any other fields to move data over and then map it into a label legend? And if so, which ones can I use without screwing up the file? I presume that the field labeled "do not edit" is a big no, but how about the others? Is there any documentation on how Spotlight uses each of these fields?

And - how about a way to change the OIP labels or to add to them? Lightwright has a whopping twelve user fields - ideally these could all be mapped into Spotlight and the OIP would have available lines that could be customized to the user's needs - including re-naming them. Is there any way to edit the OIP interface?

Thanks!

[Simon Carus-Wilson]

Rick. Upgrade to VW12

6 x User Fields, and seems to be a lot better than previous attempts regarding the Import/Export

I asked Kevin about changing the Labels in the OIP, this was his reply.

In the plug-in editor change the Alternate Name for the field in the

lighting device. Changing the Name will cause problems if someone else

opens the file.

Simon

[Rick Martin]

Good to know Simon, thanks. I'll be upgrading to 12 next month. Did you by any chance get a list of the purposes of all of the other fields and how VW uses them? Also, which plug-in do you edit? I'll try mousing around to see if I can find it. Presumably if you shared the edited plug-in with another person running VW, then the file would be completely compatible.

[Rick Martin]

O.K. Many more questions. I found the plug-in: Lighting Device.vso. By editing parameters you are able to give alternate names to all the fields and when you do this with fields that are displayed in the OIP, the name of the field changes. Presumably it is better to fill in an alternate name rather than the actual parameter name because of how scripts refer to the plug-in? Indeed, I changed the "Unit Number" parameter to "Unit Number New" and lost all unit number information from a file.

But, one question is this: If I use this changed plug-in on a new lighting plot drawn from scratch, then I'd be able to start filling out "Unit Number New" from the beginning and the information would be retained. I'd have to also re-do Label Legends, my Import/Export routines, and give everyone that I want to share the plot with my changed plug-in. Is this right? BUT, if I only filled in the text "Unit Number New" into the alternate text field, then everything would work as is and I'd have my OIP label changed. When I shared the file with somebody else who didn't have my changed plug-in, they would just have the default name in the OIP?

Now, back to using other fields for other uses: Many of the parameters are listed as "text" so I presume that they handle entered information the same - the same as, for example, "user field 1". I gave alternate names to "System", "Mark", "Frame Size", "User Field 1" and "User Field 2" and they all perfectly changed in the OIP. Then I made a Lable Legend that had all of these fields in it, assigned it to some lights, and then entered data into all the fields in the OIP. Excellent! Everything showed up as expected. Then I did an export to Lightwright - no clicking of the Lightwright Lozenge though, I selected everything including my new names, exported, imported to LW and everything worked perfectly.

BUT: If I were to give an alternate name to say, "Use Legend" and entered info other than Lable Legend names into that field, then I would lose the functionality of the Lable Legends. So, some or many of the fields in the "Lighting Device.vso" plug-in are referred to in some way or another by other scripts. I chose "Mark" and "System" in my test because these are I think specific Lightwright fields that Nemetschek added to help with data sharing, so I presume that there isn't any deep referencing to them within VW. Is there a list though of which fields in the Lighting Device plug-in are used by scripts and other routines within VW? 6 user fields is great in VW12, but ideally I'd use ten because of the way that I'm setting up a specific site's needs.

Thanks to Katie and Kevin in advance on this very long question.

Edited October 20, 2006 by RPMDesign

[Rick Martin]

Kevin or Katie, any info on this?