Selector Control Link

The requirements for a restaurant audio system you're designing include end user control over selection of background music channels. There are to be four choices: Jazz, Soft Rock, Classical, and Country.

Hardware Controls

A DR2 works nicely for this scenario. The end user turns the DR2 knob to highlight a channel from a list of channels on the DR2 LCD screen and then pushes the DR2 knob to select that channel.

note: If you have read the Toggle control link example, you'll notice that the hardware controls description is quite similar to the description here. There is a key difference, however, between these two control types. Whereas a Toggle behaves like a checkbox (meaning you can adjust the state for each item in the list), a Selector behaves like a radio button (meaning you can select only one item in the list at any given time).

Halogen Configuration — Hardware Workspace

1. Add one DR2 to the Hardware Map.
2. Double-click the DR2 to open its properties. Confirm that its Control Mode is configured as Single Selector (the default mode).
3. 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. Configure your Selector processing block:
   1. Click the DSP tab in the palette area and drag the appropriate Selector block into the Processing Map, placing it in the appropriate location.
   2. On the Selector block, add two more channels by clicking Add twice, giving the block a total of four channels.
   3. Wire the block into the system.
   4. You may also want to name the channels. You can do so by clicking on each input and then typing a custom name in the text edit box that appears. These names may or may not be the names that appear on the DR2 LCD screen (it's up to you). When you link a DR2 selector control to a selector processing block, the DR2 selector control initializes its selection names from the names in the processing block, although you can change the DR2 names, if necessary.

   best practice: If you want the DR selection names to match the channel names on the linked processing block, create the block's channel name before linking it to the DR.

2. Display the hardware controls by clicking the Control tab in the palette area, and then locate the relevant DR2.
3. Drag the link icon associated with the DR2's selector control and drop it on the link icon associated with the Selector processing block in the Processing Map (located in the Selector block's properties dialog).
4. In the prompt dialog box that appears, confirm that you are creating a new control link.
5. Click the DR2's Selector control to open its properties. It should display the same selection names that appear on the Selector processing block.
6. Customize the DR2 Display Label, if desired. This label appears above the selection list. Note that a display label is not required.

1. In the Processing Workspace, open the properties dialog box for each control participating in the link (if they are not open already):
   • In the Control palette, click the DR2 Selector control.
   • In the Processing Map, double-click the Selector processing block.
2. Within one of the properties dialog boxes, change the selection. The other controls should reflect the selection change.