User Interface
Table of Contents
The Director User Interface uses a highly customizable docking window environment. This allows the user to arrange and re-size controls to his specific needs and hide parts that do not fit his workflow.
Launch Screen
When launching Director or closing the active show, a simple launch screen is shown inside the Director's work area instead of the usual docking environment. In the center, the three last opened shows are shown. Underneath it are buttons to quickly create a new show, browse for an existing one or open the user manual.
Once a show is opened, Director hides the launch screen and switches to the full docking window environment that will be discussed in the following parts of this chapter.
Default Layout
The following screenshot shows the default layout. The remainder of this chapter will discuss window layouts in general as well as some common elements that are always present. Since most element however are optional and can be added/removed depending on the user's workflow, those will be described in their individual chapters.
- Render Windows: Show the output signal
- Templates: Browser window for the available templates
- Property Editor: Used to edit the values of a cued template
- Show Control: Contains the 4 action buttons, a status text and the log info icon.
- Timeline: Used to record and playback a show.
Docking Windows
A docking window primarily consists of the content shown inside it but also features some common elements along the top of the window.:
- clicking the pin icon in the top-left corner changes the window between being pinned (= open) and unpinned (= folded to the side of the main window). When hovering over the folded version of an unpinned window, the window will grow to its full size again until the mouse leaves the area of the window. This is especially useful in situation where screen space is limited (e.g. laptops) or certain windows are only used occasionally.
- Next to the pin icon are one or more labels. A bright font color indicates which docking window's content is shown below. The darker labels indicate other docking windows sharing the same window area but being hidden by the active docking window. clicking on any of the other labels brings that docking window to the front. Some windows have a sub-title beneath their label which shows the name of the channel they operate on.
- Some docking windows contain a downward pointing triangle in the right corner. This indicates the docking window has configuration options which appear when clicking the icon.
A window that operates on a channel will use the channel's optional color to color its outer border. This is useful to distinguish multiple windows of the same type (e.g. playlist windows) operating on different channels.
A docking window can be re-sized by hovering over its boundary such that the cursor changes to a two-headed arrow and then click and drag. It can also be docked to another side of the window by dragging the window's label. While dragging, indicators appear that show potential docking regions where the window can be dropped.
Render windows are placed in the so called document area that is always in the center of the window. To re-arrange render windows, drag the label above a render window over another render window until the docking indicators appear.
Hide/Reveal vs. Create/Remove
Docking windows can be hidden and revealed by clicking on the respective entry in the main menu's Window menu. When a window is hidden, it still belongs to the Window Layout and can be revealed again via the menu. However, there are situations where the user never uses a specific window or needs multiple instances.
To create or remove windows from a layout, click on Window/Windows ... in the main menu to open the Window Manager. To add a new window, press the New button and choose one of the available window types. Note that some windows require a channel or topology view to work. For example, a renderer window does not make sense without some source where the output comes from which in this case is the view. In a similar fashion, a property editor or playlist control require a channel to fulfill their purpose. To which entity a window is bound to is shown in the bound to column in the window manager.
The list of available window types may vary from machine to machine based on the number of installed Director Plug-ins.
By selecting an entry in the list of allocated windows, a window can be removed or its properties (name and keyboard short-cut) be edited.
Managing Window Layouts
Since layouts are so powerful, Ventuz not only allows for adding and removing windows but also for switching between different layouts. Window layouts are managed via the main menu Window/Window Layout/Manage.... The list shows a thumbnail for each available layout as well as its name. double-click on the name to edit it. By selecting an entry, the buttons for re-ordering, deleting and resetting to default become enabled. To actually activate a layout and use, press the Activate button.
Layouts can also be activated either from the main menu directly or by cycling through them. The respective short cuts can be found in the main menu or on the Shortcuts page of this manual.
Window layouts are stored in the user-settings on a per project basis. So each operator working on a machine has a separate set of layouts for each project but all shows based on a project share this set. For easy deployment, window layouts can also be embedded into the Ventuz Project file. When an operator opens a show based on a project for which he does not have any window layouts in his user settings yet, the window layouts from the project will be copied. Window layouts can be embedded into the project file or restored from it via Show / Project / Default Window Layouts in the main menu.
Messages Window & Log File
In the lower right corner of the launch screen is the message icon which also can be found in the same corner when a show is open. Whenever an error occurs, the icon flashes red. By clicking on it, the messages window is opened or closed again.
Whenever something important in Director happens, it is written to the log file and thus also to the Messages window. The location of the log file can be found by launching Director and checking the very second line that is logged (the initialization of the logging itself).
By clicking on the downward pointing triangle in the right corner of the messages window, additional options appear that allow the user to search for a specific text or change the logging level (e.g. show only errors, no warning).
Fullscreen Modes
Director can run in windowed mode, fullscreen with menu bar and fullscreen without menu bar. To cycle through the different modes, press F11 or F11 + Shift to cycle in reverse order. Note that one can also launch Director in fullscreen mode by using the respective Command Line Option.
Light Theme
While most operators will prefer the dark user interface for its unobtrusiveness, it can be problematic in bright light situations. Therefore Director contains a second, light theme that uses exactly the same control layout but uses a brighter color scheme and reduces effects such as drop shadows. The active theme can be changed via the Skin submenu in the Windows main menu.
