cuemgr is a a console-based cueing program designed for running threatrical productions.
This program controls lights in real time, can save and load light parameters (cues) as text files, and can run a show from a cuesheet by stepping through cues and scenes using keyboard shortcuts.
I'm certain there exist many suitable cueing programs; this one was thrown together during tech week to control ethernet-controlled robot spotlight prototypes and traditional DMX-controlled theater lights with one flexible interface, which didn't seem like it would be all that much work at the time.
A cue is dictionary of settings for theater hardware (stage lights and robot spotlights at present) saved in a json file. Cues can be arranged in scenes and grouped to execute simultaneously or sequentially. Cues are read from a cuesheet: a single text file which uses nested indentation to indicate scenes and groups. The program automatically loads 'cuesheet.txt' at startup. Cues are assumed to be in the folder 'scenes'.
Pressing the 'C' key at any time lets you type in one of the following commands:
- load <filename> - load cue (light parameters) to file
- save <filename> - save cue (light parameters) from file
- cuesheet <filename> - load a new ordering of cues to be stepped through
To switch views press keyboard key 1, 2, or 3. Note that keyboard keys 8, 9, and 0 are mapped to changing light parameters in some views.
View '1' navigates through cues with keyboard shortcuts and is meant for running the show.
View '2' is an interface for controling robot spotlights in realtime and reading and writing cues.
View '3' is an interface for controling DMX theater hardware in realtime and reading and writing cues.
At startup, this program will try to connect to multiple devices over TCP/IP.
- An Open Lighting Architecture server program running on the local machine. See dmx.py.
- Multiple LightArm spotlight robots on the network. The address and properties of the robots are defined in lightarm.py for the moment.
TODO:
- move to curses framework
- display all keyboard controls
- support a config file