QSCad

Lesson Description

QSCad Application Design

QSCad is a stand alone custom application designer tool. It is used to create new "skins" for the end-user to view and control his QSControl.net system. Although QSCad itself is a bit older than QSCreator, it can accomplish many of the same functions of QSCreator plus a few more. Such skins might have different navigation screens with bitmaps, jpegs, or other image

Drawings imported as bitmaps or jpeg images from CAD drawings or floorplan drawings can become the backgrounds for control screens with transparent "hot spot links" over certain areas or zones of the image. Clicking on a hot spot might then navigate to another screen, or recall a Global Preset of the system or show system status panels or any combination of these. Global Presets allow multiple devices to recall their Config/Snapshot settings. You can have multiple users, each with their own login names and passwords. Each login would have access to more or less features and a function as you feel is necessary. Someone designated as an Administrator, for instance, would have access to every function on every screen and panel, while other users might only be able to mute/unmute audio and recall presets. Again, these are all features which are also now part of QSCreator.

Note: that while most of the functionality of QSCad has now been "absorbed" into QSCreator, which is installed as part of Venue Manager, QSCad is still a viable solution for some specific custom application requirements.

QSCad uses a "plug-in" paradigm to create screens and panels. There are a few subtle differences between QSCad and QSCreator. For example, QSCad has a scheduling feature which QSCreator does not yet have. If you need a Scheduler function, you will use QSCad's Scheduler plug-in. QSCad has a pre-made channel strip plug-in, so you don't have to drag each and every desired amp function to the custom screen. You merely tell QSCad which channels of your system to display as a channel strip, QSCad applies a preformed template for those channels. QSCad can also provide user management down to the DSP processor block level, so it has a more granular approach to security.