Show Editor

What it's for — The Show Editor is where you build and arrange your Theatre show: add cues, sequence them on a timeline, set how each cue fires (timecode, manual GO, or chained), and inspect or edit every detail before the curtain goes up.

The screen, region by region

Track tab bar (top ribbon) — One tab per show track. Each tab carries an OFF / DRY / LIVE badge that sets the rehearsal mode for that track. OFF mutes all output; DRY steps through cues without sending to hardware; LIVE fires everything for real.

Hierarchy browser (left panel) — A collapsible tree of Acts and Scenes. Click an Act or Scene to jump the cue list to that section. Collapse the browser with the divider handle to give the timeline more room.

Cue list (centre-left column) — Your ordered list of cues. Each row shows the cue number, name, trigger badge, and action count. The row highlighted in blue is the current cue; the next cue to fire is dimmed and marked with an arrow. Use the toolbar at the top to add, filter by trigger type, or bulk-edit. Single-click a cue's timecode cell to jump the playhead (and any slaved audio/video) straight to that cue; double-click the cell to edit the timecode inline.

QuickAdd bar — A bar below the cue list for quickly inserting common cue types without opening the full editor dialog. Type a name and pick a trigger to append at the playhead position.

Capture toolbar — A slim chip row of up to ten capture slots, each bound to a bare number key (1–0). While the audio preview is playing, press a slot's key (or click its chip) to punch a new cue with that slot's label and colour at the live playhead — the fastest way to rough in a show while listening. The trailing gear opens the Capture Slots editor: add or remove slots, recolour and rename them, load a starter set (Main · Hit · Build · Sweep · Pyro), and choose whether each punch pops a naming field (Label on capture) and whether the transport holds while you type (Pause while labelling). Slots are saved with the show.

Timeline / waveform panel (centre-right, below the divider) — Shows the audio waveform with ghost-cue markers overlaid. Drag the split divider up or down to trade space between the cue list and the timeline. Ghost cues (translucent markers) show suggested positions generated by the cue suggestion engine. When several cues stack at (almost) the same position, the marker lane shows a small ×N count badge — tap the stack repeatedly to cycle the selection through the cues under it.

Reference video pane — Appears between the timeline and the cue list when the selected track has a reference video attached (rehearsal footage, a previz render, a director's cut). The header shows the filename, a muted label, a settings gear, and a collapse chevron. The video is an editing aid only: it plays muted, slaved to the playhead — scrubbing the ruler, clicking a timecode cell, or playing the audio preview all keep the frame in sync. It is never sent to any output and is ignored entirely by Run Mode.

Inspector (right panel, 360 dp) — A tabbed panel that opens when you select one or more cues. Tabs cover: Trigger settings (including the trigger mode and control-cue sections below), Action settings, and Cue details (name, notes, ready state). Changes apply immediately.

Transport bar (bottom) — Play and Pause buttons, a large hero timecode readout, plus a rehearsal mode toggle (OFF / DRY / LIVE) that affects all tracks at once.

Trigger modes — how a cue fires

Every cue sits at an absolute timecode position on the ruler, but the Trigger section of the Inspector's Triggers tab decides how it actually fires. Pick one of four modes:

For every mode except Timecode, a Pre-wait (s) field appears: a hold applied after the trigger condition is met, before the actions dispatch (the same idea as a pre-wait on a theatre desk).

Chain behaviour worth knowing: Follow and Auto cues chain down the track — a fired cue schedules the next Follow/Auto cue after its pre-wait, which schedules the next, and so on. Chains are cancelled by Stop, Pause, or a seek, and each link re-checks at fire time that the show is still playing and the cue is still in STANDBY — so manually firing or disabling a cue mid-chain safely breaks the chain.

Control cues — Goto, Group, Load

The Control section of the Triggers tab turns a cue into a control cue: it still runs its own actions, and additionally drives the show when it fires. Targets are entered by cue number, just like on a desk.

• Goto — jumps the playhead to the target cue when it fires. Use it to build rehearsal loops or alternate branches. A loop-safety guard means a Goto only jumps once per playback pass; stopping the show or scrubbing re-arms it.
• Group — also fires every listed target cue together (a container cue). Already-fired and disabled targets are skipped, so accidental cycles break instead of cascading.
• Load — pre-arms the target cue (the desk "load" — a later GO on it is instant) without firing it.

The Control section only appears when the show has other cues to target. A target number that doesn't resolve simply reverts — nothing is saved half-configured.

Common tasks

1. Add a cue at the playhead — Press Cmd+N. A new cue appears at the current playhead position in the timeline.
2. Set how a cue fires — Select it, open the Inspector's Triggers tab, and pick Timecode / Manual GO / Follow / Auto in the Trigger section. Add a Pre-wait if the cue should hold before dispatching.
3. Punch cues while listening — Set up capture slots (gear on the capture toolbar), press Space to run the audio preview, then hit 1–0 at each moment. Rename afterwards, or enable Label on capture to name each cue as you punch it.
4. Line up multi-part shows — If each track carries one part's audio, open Sequence Parts (in the editor toolbar). Review the computed start timecodes, set the Gap between parts, optionally tick Create an Act per part, and apply. Every part's audio and its cues move together, as a single undoable step.
5. Attach a reference video — Open the track's settings (gear in the reference video pane header, or the track's edit dialog), pick the file, and set an offset if the footage has pre-roll. The pane appears automatically.
6. Duplicate a cue — Select the cue, then press Cmd+D. The duplicate is inserted immediately after the original.
7. Reorder cues — Select a cue and press Cmd+Up or Cmd+Down to move it one position at a time.
8. Nudge a cue's timing — Press ← or → to shift the selected cue by one frame. Hold Shift to nudge by one second.
9. Zoom the timeline — Press Cmd+= to zoom in and Cmd+- to zoom out.
10. Generate cue suggestions — Press Cmd+Shift+S to run a dry analysis. Suggested positions appear as ghost markers on the timeline. Review them and drag any you want to keep into the cue list.
11. Toggle a cue enabled/disabled — Select the cue and press Cmd+Shift+E.
12. Undo / redo — Cmd+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z.

Tips & gotchas

• Text entry suspends shortcuts. While you are typing a cue name in the QuickAdd bar or Inspector, keyboard shortcuts such as Delete and Cmd+Up are suppressed — and so are the capture number keys. Press Escape or click outside the field to restore them.
• Open dialogs lock the keyboard. Any modal dialog (e.g., the full Cue Editor, a confirm dialog) captures all key events. Close the dialog first if shortcuts appear to stop working.
• DRY mode is your friend. Step through the full show in DRY before switching any track to LIVE. DRY advances the cue stack, runs timecode, and even executes control cues (Goto/Group/Load advance the show state) but does not send output — so you catch sequencing mistakes without affecting the rig.
• The number keys mean different things in different rooms. In the Show Editor, bare 1–0 punch capture cues. In Run Mode, bare keys fire cues with a matching Hotkey trigger. Same keyboard, different job — set up accordingly.
• Reference video needs VLC. The pane uses your system's VLC installation (videolan.org). If VLC is not installed, the pane shows an install prompt instead of video.
• Reference video is part-anchored. The footage's 0:00 aligns to its part's audio start, not to absolute show timecode — so Sequence Parts carries the video along when it re-places a part. A positive offset means the footage has pre-roll.
• Sequence Parts needs analysed audio. The dialog stays disabled until every part's duration is known; parts whose audio file is missing or unreadable are visibly skipped, and at least two resolved parts are required.

Related

• Run Mode — Run the show these cues belong to, including GO / Back and hotkeys
• Cues — Add and manage the cue stack without the timeline view
• Show Timeline — The DJ fire-plan timeline (DJ edition)
• Looks & Scenes — Build the output presets your cues reference
• Dialogs — Sequence Parts and Capture Slots dialog reference