Lesson 20 Tut3

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Overview

In this lesson we will learn how to create and add new device definitions. You need to do this acivity only, if your device is not yet defined in the default set of DMXControl 3 device definitions.

Lecture 20: Create new device definitions

A device definition file (short: DDF) is used to inform DMXControl about the properties of a device. A DDF is wiritten in XML language and stored in the path

<DMXControl program path>\kernel\devices

If you are familar with DDFs of DMXControl 2.0 you will see some important differences:

There is no GUI description part, because DMXControl 3 doesn't provide the device context menues
Sone syntax elements are very similar (esp. in information part), i.e. you can reuse the existing DDFs
The function part is much more abstract: You make the definition mainly by properties and not by DMX channels

Currently there is no "DDF creator" available fpr DMXControl 3, we recommend to use a text editor or XML editor tool. (Hint: We need support for adaption of an existing DMXControl 2 php tool towards DMXControl 3)

At first lets have a view to a very simple DDF ("Generic RGB Par"):

 01 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
 02 <device image="bild" type="DMXDevice">
 03  <information>
 04    <modell>Generic RGB PAR</modell>
 05    <vendor>Generic</vendor>
 06    <author>Arne Luedtke</author>
 07  </information>
 08  <functions>
 09    <rgb>
 10      <red dmxchannel="0" />
 11      <green dmxchannel="1" />
 12      <blue dmxchannel="2" />
 13    </rgb>
 14  </functions>
 15 </device>

Line 01 is mandatory default line for describing the XML version. Lines 02 and 15 provide the frame for the device definition that contains of two parts:

information part (lines 03 to 07), no need for further explanation.
function(property) specification part (lines 08 to 14)

The example device posesses one property: RGB colar mode. The mapping to DMX channels is described in lines 10 to 12.

Thats all!

Following table shows the existing properties:

Property	Description	Comment
switch	fixture has a switch channel	<switch dmxchannel="0" />
dimmer	fixture has a dimmer channel	<dimmer dmxchannel="0" />
fog	fod property	<fog dmxchannel="0" />
shutter	fixture has a shutter	<shutter dmxchannel="4" />
strobe	fixture has a strobe channel	<strobe dmxchannel="7" />
rgb	fixture uses RGB color mode	<red dmxchannel="0" /> <green dmxchannel="1" /> <blue dmxchannel="2" />
position	fixture has pan/tilt control	<position> <pan dmxchannel="0" > <range range="170" /> </pan> <tilt dmxchannel="1" > <range range="110" /> </tilt>
color wheel	fixtures contains color wheel	<colorwheel dmxchannel="2"/>
gobo wheel	fixtures contains gobo wheel	<gobowheel dmxchannel="2"/>

The different intervals in a DMX channel are defined by the "step" tag:

<step val="0" mindmx="0" maxdmx="127" />
<step val="100" mindmx="128" maxdmx="255" />

or:

<step type="color" val="#FFFFFF" caption="Weiß" mindmx="0" maxdmx="31" />
<step type="color" val="#FF0000" caption="Rot" mindmx="32" maxdmx="63" />

topics to be added (by beta testers)

Please complete the description
During the beta test there is no upload capability for new DDFs. This topic must be updated.

Excercise

Have a look into several device definitions before creating your own DDF.
Open the DDF for TS255. Separate the different properties by blank lines to get a better understanding.
Create the DDF for your own device.

Additional links and references

Certificate

I have understood the topics of this lecture and want to continue with next course: Lesson 21