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Lighting Desk Number Pad


beninjam

  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. What number pad do you prefer (or use most often)?

    • 1 2 3 on the top row
      3
    • 7 8 9 on the top row
      38


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Hello All,

 

I am currently designing and building a lighting desk as a sixth form project, and ran into a small problem, which may seem insignificant, but it'd be nice to get an opinion from other experts.

 

Here is the question: When using a lighting desk, what layout of the numeric pad do you use, when entering channel numbers etc.

 

for example, do you use:

 

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

0

or...

 

7 8 9

4 5 6

1 2 3

0

 

Could you reply or answer the poll, just so I can get an idea? Thanks :-)

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I answered 789 on the top row, this is how most (all?) standard computer keypads are laid out- you want something that your users would be familiar with if there is a lot of numeric entry required.

 

You haven't mentioned the bottom of the keypad, which is probably just as important as the numeric order- you need a way of clearing a mistype or executing a command- I would suggest:

 

Clear-0-Enter

 

for the bottom row.

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Interesting one - I've not really thought about it ... Strand (and ETC) uses "1 2 3" on the bottom row which is what I've expected ever since.. but I've seen many desks the other way around (Avolites being one of the more notable)
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I think that the format 123 on the top came from some tests that bt did along time ago when they moved from dials on phones and they found that people were more accurate with that format rather 789
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Have a look at the Chamsys desks - their keypad also has @, FULL, ENTER, THRU, +,-,/,*

You need to be able to easily enter more than just a string of numbers - it's much more likely that you'll want to enter something like 1 THRU 20 @ FULL

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I'd suggest that you dedicate some time to researching this in 'common' consoles.

 

Examine the layout of the main keypad entry section of as many existing real lighting consoles as you can, and see if you can come up with reasons why each selected that one.

The keypad layout is going to be affected by the operation style of the console - one obvious big difference is between command-line consoles where you always hit the [Enter] button at the end of a command, and direct-action consoles where you don't.

 

Finally, as this is a school project one thing worth remembering is that in education your submitted writeup of the project is usually more important than the 'thing you made'.

You'll get better marks for a great writeup with a useless product than for a great product with a useless writeup.

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