Fire hot buttons live
You run the event from the hot button grid, which holds every hot button you made. To fire a hot button, click it once.
The pages are tabs in the card at the top of the view. If the window is too narrow for all of them, the tabs turn into a menu showing the current page's name; select the name, then pick a page. Switching pages does not affect what is playing.
You can also change pages without clicking a tab. Hover over the grid or the tabs and turn the mouse wheel or swipe with two fingers on the trackpad: down goes to the next tab, up to the previous one. Hidden pages are skipped, and scrolling stops at the first and last tab instead of wrapping around.
Each button shows its name, its number, a counter of how many times you fired it, and the time. Before the button plays, the time is the item's length; while it plays, the time counts down.
Read the tile
| Tile | Meaning |
|---|---|
| White ring and a dial next to the time that empties | The button is playing. The time counts down. |
| Time on an orange pill | Less than 10 seconds remain. |
| Dashed ring, frozen time, Paused | The button is paused. |
| ↻ 4 | The item loops. The number is the current pass. |
| Fading | The sound fades out. |
| LIVE (red) | A live stream. The time counts up and there is no dial. |
| Orange chip with a canvas name and taken | Another item took that canvas. The rest of the button continues. |
| Bolt badge with an action name and +2 | The button fires actions. The badge shows the first action. +2 means two more. |
| Bolt and an action name in place of the time | The button has only actions. Each press fires them again. |
| Chip No sequence, No stream, No overlay, or Sequence missing and similar | An action has no target, or its target was deleted. The app skips it and runs the rest. |
| Dimmed, with Media missing | A file is not available. Pressing the button does nothing. |
| Dimmed, with a lock | The position is beyond the limit of your plan. |
| Dashed outline with only the number | The position is empty. |
The dial shows how much of the current pass remains. It starts full at the top, empties clockwise and moves smoothly between the seconds. When an item loops, the dial fills again on each pass.
A button with only actions has no length and shows no dial. An action that switches on every press, such as Mute bus, keeps no on or off state on the tile. A Fade out all action shows a ring and a bar for the fade time. See Build a hot button.
A hot button with only streams has no length to count down, so its time counts up and it shows no dial. A hot button with only video counts down the remaining time taken from the picture, and a timed image hold stops at the same moment as the picture. Pausing the button stops the time.
Page badges and the playing summary
A page tab shows a badge with the number of hot buttons playing on that page, so you can spot something playing on a page you are not looking at.
The strip in the card counts the hot buttons playing across all pages, for example 2 playing, or shows Nothing playing. It also shows the hot button that started last, with its bar and remaining time. In a narrow window, the strip leaves out the bar.
Sequences and rotations on air show in the On air button of the top bar. See Main window.
Fire, stop and pause
| Action | Does |
|---|---|
| Click | Fires it. The button pulses while it plays. |
| Click while it plays | Stops it and rewinds to the start. Actions set to On stop fire. |
| Shift-click | Pauses it and keeps the position. |
| Click or Shift-click while it is paused | Continues from where it stopped. |
| Right-click | Opens Edit hot button. See Build a hot button. |
In Select mode, a click selects a button and does not fire it. See Edit many hot buttons. Hardware triggers still fire.
A fire always rewinds, and a pause never does. Pause a half-time announcement you will pick up again soon; fire a goal horn that must play from the start every time.
If Fade out when stopped is selected for the hot button, stopping it fades the sound out over the configured duration instead of cutting it. See Build a hot button.
To pause with the pointer only, show a pause strip on each tile that plays:
- Go to Configuration → Show → Hot buttons.
- In the Tiles card, turn on Pause button on tiles.
The strip sits on the right edge of the tile. While the button plays, it shows Pause; click it to pause. While the button is paused, the strip turns white and shows Resume; click it to continue from where it stopped. Clicking the strip never fires or stops the button. The strip is hidden while a button fades out and in Select mode.
Fire from hardware
A key you bind to Hot button, or a trigger you learn in Edit hot button, works like a click on the button, and it fires the button even when the grid is in Select mode. See Run a show from a controller.
Global actions
Four actions affect every item at once. They have no on-screen buttons and work only from bound keys, so bind them before the event if you want them.
| Action | Does |
|---|---|
| Stop all | Stops and rewinds all hot buttons and sequences that play. |
| Fade out all | Fades all items to silence and black, then rewinds them. |
| Pause all | Pauses all items at their current position. |
| Blackout all | Makes all canvases black immediately. |
To bind these actions, see Controller actions.
Bind Stop all and Blackout all to keys you can easily find under stage lighting, and not to keys you might press by accident. These actions affect all outputs at once.
Reset the play counters
Reset Hot Button Counters in the menu bar sets all counters to zero after asking you to confirm. Use it between events so the counts cover a single match.