What happened to conditional formatting in reports?

Hi Pyro_72350000 When it comes to strobe pots, the short answer is no, there is nothing you can do in VDL to make them look better. We know they look bad and we're working on a big project to improve effect sims across the board. We'll release better strobe pot sims as soon as possible.   Also, if you're working on a competition show for PyroJam, please be sure not modify the catalog effects. If you think a catalog item has a broken sim, let us know and we'll into it right away.

Bruce, you can already do exactly what you are describing using the Universe column in the Script window. Granted, Position Properties doesn't directly support multiple Universes and the addressing algorithm won't do it automatically, but you can still do it! After addressing, just set your Universe values per script row and then export. I just did a quick test by making a show with 1 position and 32 items. After addressing, I set 16 items to Universe 1 and 16 items to Universe 2, then I exported and the result was 2 scripts.    

Is there a way to get the strobe pots to flash more like a real strobe? Any changes I can make in the VDL?

Simon,   Here's one scenario: I have two different groups of devices on a production. For Device Group A, I want to Auto Fire the devices on time code using controller #1. For Device Group B, I have a number of items that I want to manually trigger based upon some event using controller #2. Both Device Groups are going to use the same brand of controller, one set to manual, the other auto. I would like to be able to design, place and address all the effects using a single script and then filter the events into 2 separate firing table files for download into their respective controller. 2 "universes", one position. I could just use separate position(s) for each group, but then I'm stuck with the layout/addressing/diagramming being handled separately. Would be simpler IMO to designate a column on the script table, use it to filter the addresses I want and download.

Building on Simon's excellent list of diagramming requests: --The ability to remove the background (transparency would allow superimposition in apps like Illustrator/Photoshop). --Proper rack scaling parameters. Position scale grid is fairly useless without properly scaled rack sizes. --Use Google maps/earth as a position background --Ability to combine the view of multiple positions on a single page   Other requests: --Auto logon. Shouldn't be necessary to enter password every time the app is started. --Dialog dismissals. "Don't Show Again" checkbox should be a component of any modal dialog that doesn't require user input. --Default values for Dialogs. For dialogs like Make Into Fan..., the ability to have a user/show-specific default value (like 40°), and/or have sticky/stored values, i.e., the dialog displays the same value as was entered from the previous use (this would also be a pretty neat keyboard shortcut, e.g., Shift-F = Fan like previous). --Select with previous/next. Method to add to selection in script window using Keyboard Shortcut. Similar to current use of "B", but would be better implementation if they were something like ctrl-[up arrow] or ctrl-[down arrow] (though these currently adjust row height). That way you could add to a selection both backwards or forwards  without leaving keyboard to perform modifications on devices like Make into fan.            

Good point Simon,   There is a good explanation of search expressions in the documentation available here: https://finale3d.com/documentation/search-expressions/

Hi Bruce,   My general tip for finding things in the f3d documentation is to ctrl+f(or cmd+f) when looking at the table of content. If you search for "multi" in the table of content menu, you get 5 hits and it is rather obvious which one is the one you were looking for.   The documentation is very comprehensive, and there are few "hidden" features. I think that the documentation is often updated before the release of a new Beta. It is extremely useful to learn how Will et al writes documentation because F3D is very well documented to be a nisch tool.     Regarding the use case of multiple universes on the same physical and virtual position. How do you do that in reality. Sounds like a painful and risky setup. When I have used multiple universes we have wanted to keep them physically separated to not mix them by mistake.

Hi!   As a note, you can also always filter in the search window. I use this a lot for filtering on all kinds of columns all of the time.   search for: notes = "equal to somthing" notes != "not equal to something

Hi!   The picture is not very clear, is it a quarter Peony?   If it is, it is possible, I have a small python script for it. https://github.com/kses/F3D-Custom-Pattern-Helper It is not super user friendly, what caliber do you need it for?