[QLab] Shuffle Cues In A Group

[Rich Walsh]

Whilst the "Fire random child and go to next cue" mode of a Group Cue is very useful, it doesn't allow you to play _all_ the cues in a Group Cue in a random order - which may occasionally be useful to break up the monotony of hearing the preshow music in exactly the same order every night. Gareth Fry and I pondered this briefly on a show back in December, and on Saturday I finally found 10 minutes to knock up a little script to do this:

-- Shuffle the cues in a specific Group Cue and set them to play consecutively (you should turn this into a Script Cue)

tell application "QLab"
set userGroupCueNumber to "1" -- Change this to the q number of the Group Cue
set userOverlap to -1 -- Use this variable to define how long before the end of a cue the next one should start (eg: "-1" will give a 1s overlap)
tell front workspace
set theGroupCue to cue userGroupCueNumber
set countCues to count cues of theGroupCue
repeat countCues times -- This won't always move every cue, but should move sufficient to randomise the order
set eachCueID to uniqueID of some item of items 1 thru -1 of (cues of theGroupCue as list) -- Trying to move the last cue to the end will result in a non-functional copy of it
move cue id eachCueID of theGroupCue to end of theGroupCue
end repeat
set shuffledCues to cues of theGroupCue
repeat with i from 1 to countCues
set eachCue to item i of shuffledCues
if i is not countCues then
set post wait of eachCue to (duration of eachCue) + userOverlap
set continue mode of eachCue to auto_continue
else
set post wait of eachCue to 0
set continue mode of eachCue to do_not_continue
end if
end repeat
end tell
end tell

Rich

(Apologies if you end up getting this several times: I'd managed to create an email wormhole with a particular combination of characters in a plain text email and the email kept disappearing!)
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[Geoff Hollingshead]

That's great Rich

I've been thinking about this for a while not only to keep myself sane but also the patrons who come see the show two, three or more times!

Cheers

Geoff
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[Daren Smith]

Worked like a charm. Thanks!

[Timothy Neville]

Do you have a fix for this in QLab 3, I can't seem to get it to work?...

Kind Regards,
Tim

[Rich Walsh]

It works fine in QLab 3. What is the issue?

This public version does not in fact protect against the edge case mentioned in the comments: it should be “items 1 thru -2”. My version has that, but I don’t know if I republished this as any point in the last 5 years…

I have added a couple of lines to check that cue userGroupCueNumber is in fact a Group Cue, and sets it to the mode required: see attached.

Rich

[Timothy Neville]

Hi Rich,

Sorry - the issue was me! I'd copied in the line "tell application "QLab"" in error! The new script looks much better and is working a charm for me. Thanks a lot for this - really appreciate it. :-)

Kind Regards,
Tim

[Heather Pynne]

Hi Rich - 

I had this in the new Qlab4 and it was working fine, then qlab closed without notice and when I re-opened my file the script no longer works.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Heather 

[Rich Walsh]

I might need a bit more info…

That’s quite an old script which I don’t immediately recall; I have a version on my laptop from 2011?! Can you send me the code and describe any error messages and what is/isn’t happening?

From a brief glimpse I think it may suffer from QLab 4’s new rules about continue mode in fire all groups…

Rich

[Heather Pynne]

Hi Rich - Nevermind! I got it working again.

Thanks,

Heather

[Hayden Allred]

I slightly modified the code to work in QLab 4. Here is the script if anyone is having troubles.

tell application id "com.figure53.QLab.4"

set userGroupCueNumber to "1" -- Change this to the q number of the Group Cue

set userOverlap to -1 -- Use this variable to define how long before the end of a cue the next one should start (eg: "-1" will give a 1s overlap)

tell front workspace

set theGroupCue to cue userGroupCueNumber

set countCues to count cues of theGroupCue

repeat countCues times -- This won't always move every cue, but should move sufficient to randomise the order

set eachCueID to uniqueID of some item of items 1 thru -1 of (cues of theGroupCue as list) -- Trying to move the last cue to the end will result in a non-functional copy of it

move cue id eachCueID of theGroupCue to end of theGroupCue

end repeat

set shuffledCues to cues of theGroupCue

repeat with i from 1 to countCues

set eachCue to item i of shuffledCues

if i is not countCues then

set post wait of eachCue to (duration of eachCue) + userOverlap

set continue mode of eachCue to auto_continue

else

set post wait of eachCue to 0

set continue mode of eachCue to do_not_continue

end if

end repeat

end tell

end tell

Take care!

Hayden Allred

[Rich Walsh]

I think you changed one line?

For QLab 4 I’d use:

-- Shuffle the cues in a specific Group Cue and set them to play consecutively

set userGroupCueNumber to "1" -- Change this to the q number of the Group Cue

set userOverlap to -1 -- Use this variable to define how long before the end of a cue the next one should start (eg: "-1" will give a 1s overlap); NB: you can’t add gaps with +ve overlaps though

tell application id "com.figure53.QLab.4" to tell front workspace

set theGroupCue to cue userGroupCueNumber

set mode of theGroupCue to fire_first_go_to_next_cue -- Have to make sure of this in v4

set countCues to count cues of theGroupCue

repeat countCues times -- This won't always move every cue, but should move sufficient to randomise the order

set eachCueID to uniqueID of some item of items 1 thru -2 of (cues of theGroupCue as list) -- Trying to move the last cue to the end will result in a non-functional copy of it…

move cue id eachCueID of theGroupCue to end of theGroupCue

end repeat

set shuffledCues to cues of theGroupCue

repeat with i from 1 to countCues

set eachCue to item i of shuffledCues

if i is not countCues then

set post wait of eachCue to userOverlap -- v4 accepts -ve post waits!

set continue mode of eachCue to auto_continue

else

set post wait of eachCue to 0

set continue mode of eachCue to do_not_continue

end if

end repeat

end tell

Rich

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[D.R. Amromin]

So cool! I'd never used a "Script Cue" - now I know what it is! Of course script code is essentially gibberish to me... BUT that's why this was so helpful. Thanks, Rich!

~D.R.

[davide....@gmail.com]

Thank you Rick this is exactly what I needed to shuffle preshow music. However, how do I make the so-created-playlist repeat itself forever, until I hit GO for the next cue, that would actually fade and stop it the preshow music?

Forgive me if it's something stupid, I started using QLab two days ago.

Grazie

Davide

[Jeremy Davidson]

Hey Rick,

I tried copying and pasting this into my cue list, changed and deleted the necessary things, and I'm still getting an error. The error says: ERROR: QLab got an error: Can't set mode of audio cue to any. (-10006)

Any thoughts?

Im using QLab 4.3.1. Thanks,

[Jeremy Davidson]

To make the playlist stop, I would make another cue group that has a fade cue with the target set to the music group. Set this continue to auto-follow. Then add a stop cue to targeting the music group. This will fade the music when you hit go, and then stop whatever song is playing after the fade is compete.

Unsure on how to make the playlist continue to loop. I, too, would like to know how to make that happen.

[Rich Walsh]

To make a "Start first child and go to next cue" group loop you just need to add a Start Cue as the last cue, targeting the Group Cue and following on from the penultimate cue. You'll need to do that _after_ you've shuffled the cues!

To fade and stop a group you can use a single Fade Cue targeting the Group Cue with "Stop target when done" checked. You don't need a separate Stop Cue.

Rich

[Rich Walsh]

Do you in fact have a Group Cue numbered "1" – or is the script targeting an Audio Cue? Since there's only one line that sets the mode of a cue I'd say theGroupCue is not a Group Cue.

Rich

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