Selecting Fixtures
Keyboard ShortcutsLayout
Browser
Browser
The Browser is the most powerful and flexible method of selecting fixtures. Click on a group heading to select all fixtures within the group, expand a group by clicking on the plus sign and click on fixtures within to select individual fixtures and, with compound fixtures, expand them to select the individual elements within. Fixtures and elements are shown in red (by default) when selected.
Hold down Shift while clicking to select all contiguous groups/fixtures/elements between clicks and hold down Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) while clicking to select multiple non-contiguous individual groups/fixtures/elements. Hold down Ctrl (Cmd) while clicking to deselect a selected group/fixture/element.
Clicking “in space” (anywhere on the Browser that isn’t a fixture) clears the selection.
The Browser also provides the interface to view and change the ordering of fixtures/elements within groups. This order is used by the application to determine cue timing and effects skews, simply drag fixtures about within the Browser to change this order.
Layout
Only fixtures and elements can be selected using the Layout, to select groups you must use the Browser. Fixtures and elements are shown in the colour set within Layout Properties (default is red) when selected.
Ctrl (Cmd) work with clicking as described above to select/deselect and you can also lasso fixtures by clicking and dragging around them, fixtures must be wholly enclosed to be selected.
When lassoing fixtures, by default a group created from the selection will be in numerical order, but holding Shift after you have started dragging will cause the group order to be defined by the position of the fixtures within the lasso. The rule for this being defined by the lasso's aspect ratio at the time the Shift key was pressed. The cursor will change to describe the selection mode:
Example:
1
6 11 16 21 2 7 12 17 22 3 8 13 18 23 4 9 14 19 24 5 10 15 20 25 All the fixtures are selected with a lasso from the top left and the cursor has a right-down arrow
, the fixtures will be selected in the following order:
1,6,11,16,21,2,7,12,17,22,3,8 etc.
Hold down Alt to select individual elements within compound fixtures. Hold down Alt and Ctrl (Cmd) to select/deselect multiple elements.
Clicking “in space” (anywhere on the Layout that isn’t a fixture) clears the selection.
Pressing Esc will toggle the previous fixture selection.
Select next/previous fixture
With a single fixture selected, the Tab key will select the next fixture (next higher fixture number) and Shift + Tab will select the previous fixture (next lower fixture number).
Select all fixtures
Ctrl + A will select all fixtures.
Selection Modes
The Right click menu allows access to various selection modes:
Normal: overrides selection with selected/lassoed fixture/s
Additive: adds the selected/lassoed fixture/s to the selection
Subtractive: removes the selected/lassoed fixture/s from the selection
Invert: deselects selected/lassoed fixture/s that are selected, and selects selected/lassoed fixture/s that are deselected
Context Menu
A context menu can be accessed by right clicking on a fixture, or the layout.
Be aware that when fixtures are selected the behaviour can be different.
- Right-clicking on a selected fixture will never change fixture selection; context menu actions apply to current fixture selection.
- Right-clicking on an unselected fixture will always clear the current selection and select the single fixture that was right-clicked. Context menu actions apply to fixture that was right-clicked (which is now the only selected fixture).
- Right-clicking on the layout never changes fixture selection, but will give access to the layout context menu.
Groups
Non-VLC Groups
Groups are an important concept to grasp as they serve multiple purposes:
Firstly, as you will see later, it is the rows of the Browser that make up the rows of the Timeline interface thus it is convenient to gather fixtures/elements that are to be programmed together into a group to simplify this procedure.
Secondly, as the order of fixtures/elements within a group determines how programming and timing is rendered, it is sometimes useful to make multiple groups of the same fixtures with different ordering.
Thirdly, groups can be used to patch fixtures, as they are a list of the fixtures in order.
Finally, Groups can be used to set up intensity and RGB control zones in the Triggers window.
To create a group:
- Select the fixtures you want to group using the Browser, the Layout or both - the order you do this in determines the order within the group
- Right-click a selected fixture and choose New Group or press the New Group button at the top of the Browser
- Name the group which has been created in the Browser containing these fixtures
NOTE: if you are creating a group of fixture elements, you must continue holding Alt when you right click to create the group.
Alternatively:
- Press New Group with no fixtures selected
- Name this empty group
- Drag fixture/element selections into the group from within the Browser - the order you do this in determines the order within the group
Add fixtures to a group
- Select the fixtures you want to add to an existing group using the Browser, the Layout or both - the order you do this in determines the order within the group
- Right-click a selected fixture and choose Add to group
- Select a group from the list
The selected fixtures are added to the end of the chosen group. If some fixtures in the selection were already in the chosen group, they are ignored and remain at their current positions in the group.
VLC/VLC+ Groups
On the VLC range of controllers, groups are used in a limited way to only be used for patching purposes. These groups are created in the same way, but are only present in Layout and Patch.
To Re-Order Fixtures in a Group
The order of fixtures in a group directly impacts the programming applied to them and the order that the fixtures within them get patched.
When creating these groups, sometimes it can be possible to create them in an order that is not optimal.
If you right-click on the group, you can select Re-order to automatically sort the fixtures in the group numerically, or in order horizontally or vertically.
Group Properties
Right-click on any group to edit its properties. This includes name, number and colour. Selecting a colour will show that colour in various places throughout Designer, including in timeline rows and in triggers which support group selection.