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Control Link Example

Toggle Control Link

Toggle controls allow you to switch between two states — on or off. A common usage of a Toggle control is to mute/unmute audio. Another common usage is to activate/deactivate a preset.

Example Scenario

Let's go with the mute/unmute example. You're designing an audio system for a school and you want to give the school principal the ability to mute or unmute the audio in each classroom. To keep things simple, we'll assume the school is small (5 classrooms).

Creating the Link

Hardware Controls

A DR2 works nicely for this scenario. The school principal turns the DR2 knob to highlight a room from a list of rooms on the DR2 LCD screen and then pushes the DR2 knob, which mutes or unmutes the audio in the selected room (depending on the original state of the audio in that room).

Halogen Configuration — Hardware Workspace

  1. Add one DR2 to the Hardware Map.
  2. Double-click the DR2 to open its properties, and then configure its Control Mode as a List of Toggles/Commands.
  3. Define the correct number of controls by adding or deleting items. In this example, we need five items (one for each classroom).
  4. Confirm that the items are configured as Toggles (the default mode).
  5. You may also want to name these toggle items by clicking on the name to open an edit box, and then entering a custom name. Note that these names are not the display names that appear on the actual device but are instead for your clarification within the software. For example, you might name them Classroom 101, Classroom 102, and so on.
  6. Optionally, name the DR2 and/or manipulate its Backlight Settings. Note that the name configured here is not the display name that appears on the actual device. We'll get to that in a moment.

Halogen Configuration — Processing Workspace

  1. Display the hardware controls by clicking the Control tab in the palette area, and then locate the relevant DR2.
  2. Click each DR2 Toggle control to open its properties dialog box.
  3. In each properties dialog box, enter the appropriate Display Label. This is the name that will appear in the Toggle list on the DR2's LCD screen. In this example, you'd want to enter a label that clearly identifies each classroom (for example, Mute Room 101).
  4. In the Processing Map (we're assuming the audio flow has already been configured), locate processing blocks that contain the Mute control for each classroom. Double-click each block to open its properties, so that you can access the Mute control.
  5. In the Control palette (or from within the DR2 Command control properties dialog box), drag the link icon for one of the DR2 Command controls and drop it on the appropriate Mute control.
  6. In the prompt dialog box that appears, confirm that you are creating a new control link, and give the link a meaningful name for easier identification later.
  7. Repeat this step for the other two DR2 Command controls.
Testing the Link
  1. In the Processing Workspace, open the properties dialog box for each control participating in the link:
    • In the Control palette, click each DR2 Toggle control.
    • In the Processing Map, double-click the processing block that contains each Mute control.
  2. For each Toggle control link, select or deselect one of the Toggle controls (either the DR2, the Mute control, or the actual link) and verify that the appropriate muting and un-muting occurs.