WinScript Intro

Now that you’ve seen a quick review of our product line and you know how they work together, it’s time to figure out how to configure, program, and build your shows with them. To do that, we’ll need WinScript Live, available for both Mac and Windows on our website, alcorn.com. We’ll wait while you go ahead and download that.

Okay, you’ve got it downloaded and installed? Excellent. We’re using version 5.5.0 for this recording, so some features may have changed since then, depending on what version you’re using, so always take a look at the release notes that come with the installer to see what’s changed and what new fun functionality you can take advantage of.

In this video, we’re going to walk through the WinScript Live interface so you have an idea of where you can find the tools you need and how everything works together. But first, let’s talk about some terminology we’ll be using to make sure we’re on the same sheet of music.

First, it’s good to start with an understanding of WinScript’s file format. WinScript Live files are essentially projects all rolled up. The files contain more than just the sequences and events (more on that in a moment) that make up your show. They can also contain the user interface components (ShowTouch panels), fonts, images, and other resource files that allow your show file to be portable. If you are using media files, those are NOT included in the show project file because they can be very large (depending on the type of media). Media files are stored with relative pathnames from your show project file. As a best practice, we recommend creating a folder for your project containing the project file (with an extension of .wsl) and a folder called Media Files containing all your media. That way, you can zip the entire folder and transfer it to source control, a colleague collaborator, a client, a vendor, etc, and all your paths will be valid.

Now let’s take a walk through the interface and identify some of the key components you’ll need to be familiar with to get the most out of the software.

When you first launch Winscript Live, you’re taken to the splash page that allows you to choose to create a new file, open an existing file, connect to a controller on your network, or look at the numerous examples provided to help you get up to speed on a new topic or use as a quick reference for how to approach a skill you don’t use as frequently. Recently used files will be listed for quick access, and of course, you can choose to hide the splash screen if you prefer not to see it.

When you click on the Examples button, you’re presented with this dialog. We’ll look at the left side first because that’s where the examples, application notes, and training files are located.

Examples are simple and quick scripts that show how you would implement either a feature or an attraction type generically. Application Notes are specific implementations of technologies in the ecosystem (PLC or QSys integration, connections to external systems like PCs and terminal sessions, using MIDI for controlling devices, etc.). Finally, in the last section are the scripts for completing the training that we offer in our Orlando and Burbank classes each quarter. Each training includes a PDF file with instructions for that module and screenshots to help guide you along. Between those files and these videos, you should be an Alcorn McBride show control pro by the end of the day!

Clicking on the New button includes many of those same dialog elements, but starts out with a list of New Scripts you can create for each controller type.

Let’s start with a new V16X file for now. Once you select the V16X template, you start out with a very basic screen and only a single device (your V16X controller). Out of the box, this won’t do anything interesting – that’s where you come in!

When this window first pops up, there’s a lot going on. We’ll start at the top left and work our way down.

At the very top of the screen (where it always is) is the list of menus including File, Edit, Control, View, Resources, Configuration, Tools, Window and Help. This video was recorded on a Mac, so your view may look slightly different if you’re using a Windows machine (something like this). The vast majority of the tools are identical between the two operating systems, but this is one area where there’s just a slight difference in the way the two work.

Below that, there’s the menu bar with New, Open, Examples, and Save. New and Examples both open the dialog box we were just looking at. Open opens a dialog box to open one of your existing WSL files. Save does exactly what it saves it does (and why is the icon for Save still a Floppy Disk? Anyone? Bueller?)

Next up are undo and Redo. Very useful if you make a mistake during programming.

Connect will take your open script file and push it to a controller via serial or the network. We’ll see more about this functionality later.

Watches and Live logs are EXCELLENT troubleshooting tools that we’ll go over toward the end of the class. Troubleshooting your script and making it work flawlessly is the stuff that separates the legends from the newbs.

Send and Receive are ways to push the file to the controller or to download a file from the controller to your workstation to make modifications. The Send dialog also supports the ability to push your Winscript Live file, media files, and firmware updates to an entire fleet of vehicles or devices at a time.

Rounding out the menu bar are Find and Errors. Find is your normal Find and Replace tool functionality, which we can see displayed on the far right side of the screen. Note that there are options for Case sensitivity, finding partial text (both off by default) and for searching only inside the currently selected sequence (a powerful and oft-used feature).

Errors in our built-in script checked that validate that you don’t have any significant syntax errors that would prevent your code from doing what was intended. This example shows what an error looks like – it tells you what the issue is, where you can find it – and if you double click, takes you directly to the event to make the correction.

An error shows up in red while viewing a sequence’s events in Grid View:

Back to the main editor window, there’s a tabbed view of all the resources available. The resource tree on the far left manages which tabs are opened and helps to keep your resources readily at hand. This panel contains the list of sequences. We’ll go over all the details about sequences shortly!

Here’s a look at the Devices panel, Inputs!, Outputs!, Variables, Device Variables (more about the difference between these two in a later video), Buttons, ShowTouch Panels

There’s also a tab hiding out here on our screen – the properties tab. This comes in very handy when working on Sequences, particularly in Timeline view. Don’t let it hide from you when you need it! Like all of these panels, you can undock it and put it wherever it makes the most sense for your design workflow (including on a separate monitor, if you prefer).

Going back to our sequences view for a moment, you’ll notice that if we double click on one of these sequences, we’ll launch into the details of that sequence in a lower section of the window. These are where the events live that makes this sequence do something interesting, and that’s the meat and potatoes of show control.

So that’s a quick intro to where to find things inside WinScript Live.

One other thing we should note – most of the recordings for this training have been recorded on a Mac, using Dark Mode out of personal preference. But if you prefer a lighter motif, WinScript Live has 3 color palettes to choose from – Dark, Light, and Pastel. Use whatever makes you the most comfortable and productive!

A couple of other things to point out real quick. In our main editing window, there’s a second menu bar for this specific tab we’re working in. This is context-sensitive and will change depending on what panel and what type of work we’re doing. For sequences, we have the ability to create new sequences, insert a sequence inline, add a comment line, delete sequences (use with caution!), move sequences up or down ordinally, view the events (the same as double-clicking on the row number). You can get sequence options or look at triggers AND you can use the increase/decrease indent buttons to organize your sequences into hierarchies. A handy feature of these hierarchies is that they are collapsible, which makes organizing a large file MUCH easier to manage. For other object types, you’ll see these menu choices change, but they are always based on context and similar in function. If there are unique options, we’ll call those out when we get to them.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on to making something fun!