ShowMagic AV, User Manual, Page: 15 / 233

The range of slider movement on the ShowMagic virtual desk faders is 128 screen pixels, but the
actual resolution of the fader value adjustment is 256 steps. It was not possible to use a 256 pixel
fader strip as the screen resolution is not high enough, so a single pixel movement of a fader on the
screen is equal to 2 steps. This does not pose a problem however as normally this resolution will be
adequate, but where single step adjustment is needed this can be set in one of two ways:
a) Hold down the [Ctrl] key whilst moving the fader; this will select finer fader adjustment and
decrement / increment the value in single steps.
b) Move the fader to the approximate value that is required and then left / right-click on the
value below the fader to decrement / increment the value in single steps.
Load Desk and Save Desk
The complete set-up of a desk can be saved using
Save Desk
and later loaded in again using
Load
Desk
- both available from the
File
menu on the main desk screen. A single desk set-up
programmed for just a few lighting scenes, a show or even numerous shows can be saved and
loaded at any time. The
File > New Desk
option will clear the desk set-up after confirmation and a
copy of the current desk is automatically saved as a file called Backup.dsk.
Normally when ShowMagic is initially run, all the lighting scene, sound, control event and
sequence buttons are empty. Each can then be selected and programmed, or alternatively, a desk set-
up that was previously programmed can be loaded in using
Load Desk
and then adapted to create a
new one.
VERY IMPORTANT:
We recommend that you should save your work regularly. An auto-save feature is provided to do
this automatically for you. It is also a good idea to save an important desk set-up file twice under
two different names e.g.
MyShow.dsk
and
MyShow-Backup.dsk
- should one of the files get
inadvertently overwritten or deleted then you can revert to the other.
Back ups to external media (e.g. DVD or USB memory stick) or cloud-based file services are also
strongly recommended. We have implemented optimised load and save routines that keep the size
of desk (
.dsk)
files to a minimum.
ShowMagic files can be loaded from, or saved to, anywhere on your hard disk(s) but they default to
their own folders within the ShowMagic folder.
ShowMagic desk capacities:
Lighting Scenes Sequences Sounds Action Buttons Control Events
2304 1536 960 960 960
Section 1 - Overview
3