Working with Stations

Stations are the best way to provide detailed user interfaces to users of the control system. Stations belong to the Space they are in, and provide controls only for that space and any child spaces. If you want a Station to have pages with controls for other spaces, either locate it in a wider parent space or the Project Space, or set its properties to be owned by a parent space that includes all the spaces to be controlled.

Adding Stations

Stations are placed in the Canvas on their Space and can be added from theAdd stations to the canvas tool. Once a station is placed on the canvas the configure touch station helper will be opened.

Station Properties

If a Station is not yet associated with a physical device, the property editor will prompt you to do so. The helper displayed after this prompt will guide you through setting up the station's network settings and firmware.

Edit interface to configure the selected station – here you can:

  • Select a theme – the theme defines the overall layout of the station. There are currently two different choices for the theme.

  • Select a skin – the skin defines a particular appearance for the theme. There are many different choices for the skin. In this section you can opt to Link skins to tags.

  • Configure pages for spaces – select a space to choose which pages will be displayed on this station for the selected spaces. Click the drop down arrow to the left of a parent space to reveal any child spaces.

    In this option you can select individual Spaces, more than one Space (Ctrl+click) or all Spaces (Shift+click or Click+drag). The options are:

    • Scene Recall – enabling this option will display the scenes that are assigned to the chosen space. This will allow the user of the touch screen to manually fire any of the scenes when selecting the space on the Touch device. There are additional options to include the Off Scene for each Space, and to include the Intensity Master on the page.

    • Intensity Master – enabling this option will display a Master Intensity slider for the chosen space. An Intensity Master will scale the intensities for the fixtures in the space, allowing them to maintain their difference. For more information see Intensity Adjustment.

    • Intensity Override – enabling this option will display an Intensity Override slider for the chosen space. An Intensity Override will force the intensities for the fixtures in the space to go to the set value, ensuring all are uniform. For more information see Intensity Adjustment.

    • Tunable White Override – enabling this option will display a Colour Temperature slider for the chosen space. This will force all the fixtures in the space that have a Colour Temperature parameter to use the new value set by the slider when it is moved.

    • Colour Override – enabling this option will display a Colour wheel, and separate sliders for Red, Green and Blue, for the chosen space. This will force all the fixtures in the space that have a Colour parameter to use the new value set by the placement of the pip on the colour wheel, or by the fine-tuning of the single parameter via the sliders.

  • Select which project pages are shown – additional pages can be displayed on the Interface by choosing them from this page.

    • Selecting Welcome will optionally provide a landing page for the Station. This page can be customised by clicking the cog icon. Both sections of the welcome page can be customised individually, with Zone A formatting content in the top section of the page, and Zone B the bottom. The options for each zone are:

    • Nothing – No content for this zone. If either zone is set to ‘Nothing’ then the content of the other zone will be formatted for the whole page.

    • Text – Input text formatted to match the current Theme and Skin.

    • Text and time – Input text to be shown along with the controller's current date and time. Date and time formats defined in the Project Properties – accessed via the main menu in Expert – will be respected. All text is formatted to match the current Theme and Skin.

    • Image – display an image in the selected zone. Expert supports images in .png or .jpg format. Images are scaled to fit the screen with the aspect ratio maintained. Images formatted with .png will support transparency.

    • Scene controls – adds a given space's scene to the welcome page to allow users to easily adjust the active scene. Live feedback for which scene is active in a space is provided.

    • Tag controls – adds a given tag set to the welcome page to allow users to easily adjust the active tag. Live feedback for which tag is active in a tag set is provided.

    • Selecting Tags will allow the user of the Touch device to manually change any of the tags that are included in the project, which will allow for manually overriding the current State.

    • Selecting Schedule will allow the user of the Touch device to view all schedule events on the Station, these events can be filtered by Space or Tag.

      PLEASE NOTE: In a future version of Expert, users will be able to adjust the Schedule from the Touch device. It is still to be determined if access to this functionality will be part of this option or a separate setting.

    • Space, Tag and Schedule pages can be renamed in a station, this will adjust the names in the station's navigation.

Choose your touch station’s settings

  • In this section you can select to Require an unlock on screen wakeup? If activated, you will need to add a four to eight digit code.

  • Select a Station's default page. This page will be shown after the controller boots or is activated after becoming inactive.

Preview Interface – a window will open to show you the selected station’s screen with the settings you have uploaded to it. Starting project simulation from the Toolbar will allow you to simulate lighting changes from Station simulation too. Some touch and project file changes will not be updated in Station simulation immediately, closing and restarting simulation will ensure all changes are applied to the Station simulation.

Reload Firmware – allows you to reload the firmware matching the software you are using to the selected hardware device.

Configure Station – here you can configure the network settings with either a fixed or DHCP IP address, and configure the display settings for Orientation, Normal Screen Brightness, Inactive Timeout, Inactive Screen Brightness, and Off Timeout.

Delete the selected station.

Name – of your Station, this can be the default name e.g. Touch 5.1 or you can customise the name to suit your project.

Number – of your Station which can be modified to suit your project. More than one Station can be added to your project.

In the Properties dropdown you can edit:

  • Placement

    • Space – This displays the space your Station is associated with, and if it is located on the canvas within more than one space, the dropdown shows other spaces that could own it.

    • X & Y Displays – X and Y co-ordinates of the location of the Station in its Space.

Interface override rules

When lighting changes (typically scene, intensity or colour overrides) have been initiated by a user on a touch station or from the web interface or Cloud portal control panels, those modifications will maintain until Expert Control has a scheduled or tag based change of state in programming, at which point the programmed lighting state will output.

Connecting Touch Devices

Once a touch device has been added to an Expert project, it must be associated with a physical device. This allows the touch device and Expert Control to communicate properly.

To associate a physical touch device with your project, navigate to the Network tab of the Tools menu and select your touch device. Click Change station… in the Property Editor and select your touch device from the helper. Click Commit and upload your project to Expert Control by clicking the upload button.

When an Expert Touch is receiving power but is not communicating with Expert Control, the message Waiting for controller connection… will be shown on the display. This could mean:

  • Expert Touch does not have a network connection to Expert Control.

  • Expert Touch is not associated with the connected Expert Control.

  • The connected Expert Control is not running a project.

  • Expert Touch and Expert Control are running different firmware versions.