Actions

This configuration section contains action lists that are run automatically in certain situations, as well as action commands that let you define your own remote control commands.

The available actions and their settings are described in the Actions reference. Both pages are also available in the live configuration (Control Panel), so changes can be made while the playout is running.

Standard Action Lists

Select the action list you want to edit from the dropdown list at the top of the page. Use the toolbar to add, configure and remove actions, and drag the actions with the mouse to change their order, just like in the Event Scheduler.

The following action lists are available:

• Action Menu: The actions in this list are displayed as entries in the Actions menu of the main toolbar of the playout window, so that they can be run manually with a single click. The custom title of each action, if set, is used as the menu caption. A No action entry is displayed as a separator line, which helps you to structure larger menus. Enable the option Show confirmation dialog when run manually for actions that should not be run accidentally.

• After Startup: Run once after the playout application has been started, e.g. to load a playlist, connect the encoder or switch on the automation.

• Before Shutdown: Run when the playout application is closed, before it actually shuts down.

• When playlist runs empty during automation: Run when the automation reaches the end of the playlist. Use it to fill the playlist automatically with a fallback playlist, so that there is no dead air. The list is also run once when the automation reaches an item with a fixed start time too early, and would otherwise have to wait in silence.

  Important

  Avoid loading playlists from a database in this action list. If loading fails (e.g. because of a server or network outage), the playlist is still empty, so the action list is triggered again and again, which can freeze the playout. Instead, load a playlist that only contains local audio files, so that the action list reliably fills the playlist.

• When entering ON AIR mode and When entering OFF AIR mode: Run when mAirList is switched to ON AIR or OFF AIR mode, e.g. to switch a light or a logic on the mixing console.

• When PFL output is started and When PFL output is stopped: Run when the first PFL playback starts, and when the last PFL playback has stopped. This can be used, for example, to switch a monitor speaker relay or mute the studio speakers during PFL.

• When non-player PFL output is started and When non-player PFL output is stopped: Same as above, but only for PFL playback that does not originate from a player, e.g. the PFL dialog (opened from the playlist, browser or cartwall), the Mix Editor, the PFL screen object, or the database app.

Except for the Action Menu, the actions in these lists are run in the context of the first playlist, unless a different Affected Playlist is set in an action. The When playlist runs empty list is run in the context of the playlist that ran empty.

Commands

On the Commands page, you can define action commands: custom remote control commands that run an action list when they are received. This way, you can trigger any action – for example, loading a particular playlist file – from any remote control source, such as a hardware button, a MIDI controller, a network command, or the Execute command action.

Click Add… to create a new action command. In the dialog, enter:

• Command: The command string, e.g. LOAD MORNING SHOW. The action list is run when a command is received that matches this string exactly, including upper and lower case.
• Actions: The action list to run.

Each command in the list has a checkbox in front of it. Uncheck it to disable the command temporarily.

Use the Import and Export buttons to transfer action commands to another installation.