Cartwall

The cartwall is a grid of cart players that can be started instantly, independent of the playlist. It is typically used for jingles, sound effects, beds and other short elements that the DJ fires manually during a live show.

By default, the cartwall is displayed below the playlist(s) in the playout window. It can also be displayed in a separate window, and the grid size can be adjusted freely. See the cartwall configuration for details.

Pages

The content of the cartwall is organized in pages, which are displayed as tabs above the grid. Each page has its own set of items, and you can switch between the pages at any time. Items on a page that is not currently visible will keep playing.

To create a new page, click the New Page button in the cartwall toolbar, or the + symbol next to the tabs.
To rename a page, right-click into an empty area of the page and select Rename Page.
Tabs can be rearranged by dragging them with the mouse.
To close a page, click the Close Page button in the toolbar, or the close symbol of the tab. A page cannot be closed while any of its items are playing.

Saving and Loading Pages

Each page can be saved to a cartwall page file (*.mcp) through the Save button in the toolbar (Save Page…), and opened again through the Open button (Open Page…). If a page file is already open, mAirList will switch to its tab instead of opening it a second time. You can also open a page by dragging a cartwall page file from the Browser into the cartwall.

When you close a page with unsaved changes, mAirList will ask whether you want to save it (unless disabled in the configuration).

Presets

A preset (*.mcpx) contains the complete set of open pages. Use Save Preset… and Load Preset… from the Save and Open menus to save and restore all pages at once.

The default preset is loaded automatically when the playout application is started. To make the current set of pages the default, select Save Default Preset from the Save menu. Load Default Preset from the Open menu restores it at any time.

Favorites

Frequently used page files can be registered as favorites in the configuration. When at least one favorite is registered, a button with a heart icon appears in the cartwall toolbar, which opens a menu from which the favorite pages can be loaded with a single click.

Adding Items

Items can be added to a page in various ways:

By dragging items from the Browser, the playlist, or from Windows Explorer (or any other application) to the desired position in the grid.
By right-clicking into the grid and selecting Open audio files…. The files will be inserted at the position where you clicked.

If you drop an item onto a field that is already occupied, the existing item is replaced (unless it is currently playing). When multiple items are dropped at once, they are placed into the next free fields of the grid. If there is no free space left, the remaining items are not added.

If you drop items while no page is open, a new page is created automatically.

Playing Items

Click a cart player to start it. Click it again to stop it – or to fade it out, if the Fade out when stopped option is set for that item (see below). Clicking a cart player that is currently fading out stops it immediately.

While an item is playing, the cart player shows the remaining time, a progress bar and (optionally) a ramp countdown. During the last seconds of playback, the player starts flashing as an EOF warning. The waveform of the item that was started last is displayed in the cartwall toolbar.

Cart players can also be controlled through remote control commands, e.g. CARTWALL 1 START to start the first player. Each cart player is identified by its number in the grid, which is displayed in its top left corner. The numbering scheme can be changed in the configuration, or at runtime through the Numbering submenu in the context menu of the grid.

Modes: ON, OFF and PFL

The cartwall operates in one of the following modes at any time, which are toggled through the ON and PFL buttons in the cartwall toolbar, or through remote control commands (CARTWALL MODE ...):

ON: The cart players play through their regular (on air) outputs. The ON button is highlighted in red.
OFF: Cart players cannot be started. This protects against accidentally firing a cart. Items that were already playing when you switched to OFF keep playing until they end or are stopped.
PFL: The cart players play through the PFL (pre-fader listening) output, so you can preview the items without putting them on air. The PFL button is highlighted in yellow.

When you switch to ON or PFL mode, all cart players that are currently playing are stopped. By default, you cannot leave ON or PFL mode while any cart players are active.

The mode at program startup can be set in the configuration. You can also configure the cartwall to switch to ON mode automatically when a player is started in OFF mode.

During voice track recording, the cartwall is switched to a special VT mode, in which the cart players play into the voice track recording. The mode buttons are disabled while VT mode is active.

Design Mode

To arrange the items on a page, enable design mode by clicking the Design Mode button in the cartwall toolbar, or by double-clicking into an empty area of the grid. The grid lines are displayed while design mode is active.

In design mode:

Drag a cart player with the mouse to move it to a different position in the grid.
Click a cart player to select it. Drag one of the handles around the selected player to resize it, so that it spans multiple fields of the grid.
Click the Color button in the toolbar to change the color of the selected item.
Click the close button in the top right corner of a cart player to remove the item from the page.

Click the Design Mode button again (or double-click into an empty area) to leave design mode.

Right-click a cart player to open its context menu:

PFL: Opens the PFL dialog for the item, so that it can be previewed independently of the current cartwall mode.
Options: Toggles the following options for the item:
- Enable loop: The item will be played in an endless loop.
- Exit loop on click: When a looping item is clicked, playback continues until the end of the item instead of stopping immediately.
- Fade out when stopped: The item is faded out instead of stopped when clicked or stopped by a remote control command. The fade duration can be set in the configuration.
- Don’t use icon: Display the title even if an icon is set for the item.
Cart Settings…: Opens the cart settings dialog (see below).
Copy: Copies the item to the clipboard, so that it can be pasted into the playlist.
Close: Removes the item from the page. This is not possible while the item is playing.
Item Properties…: Opens the Item Properties dialog, where you can adjust the item’s metadata, cue markers and other settings. See the Item Properties section of the database documentation for details. To set an icon for an item, use the Icon setting in this dialog.

Cart Settings

The Cart Settings dialog contains the item options described above on the General tab, and the trigger configuration on the Triggers tab.

Triggers allow you to perform an action automatically when something happens to the item. Each trigger consists of:

A condition: When item is started, When item is stopped, or When reaching START NEXT marker.
A primary action: Start another item, Stop another item, Fade out another item, Stop all other items on this page, Fade out all other items on this page, or Do nothing. For the actions that refer to another item, select the item from the Other Item list.
Optional additional actions, which can be any of the actions available throughout mAirList (e.g. executing a remote control command).

Using triggers, you can e.g. build a chain of items that are played one after the other, or make sure that only one bed is playing at a time.

NEXT Function and Page Sequence

For each page, you can define a sequence of items. Clicking the NEXT button in the cartwall toolbar will then stop the item from the sequence that is currently playing (or fade it out, depending on its options), and start the next one.

To set up the sequence, right-click into an empty area of the page and select Page Settings…. On the Sequence tab, drag the items from the Available items list into the Item sequence for NEXT function list, and arrange them in the desired order.

The NEXT button is only enabled in ON or PFL mode, and when there is a sequence item left to be played.

Runtime Options

Several display options can be changed directly in the cartwall, without opening the configuration app. Right-click into an empty area of the grid and open the Options submenu. The options are described on the configuration page.