Transport Player Controls

External synchronisation is managed by the Transport manager.

There are three play modes: Play , Play-to-end-of-section , and Loop-section. When you are using any of these modes, switching to a different mode happens seamlessly, without disturbing the progress of the Playhead.

Move the Playhead

The Playhead selects a position on the Timeline. When entering a play mode, the track will play from the current position of the Playhead.

To move the Playhead:

1. Left-click anywhere on a coloured Track bar to move the Play cursor to that point.
2. Hit the left and right Arrow keys to move the Play cursor one Track bar to the left or right.

Play

Normal play can be triggered by pressing the Enter key. Hitting Enter again will stop the cursor.

Normal play mode does not respect section boundaries; when the end of a section is reached, the playhead continues into the next section, stopping only at the end of the track. The Play button will flash to indicate which mode you are using.

Play-to-end-of-section

1. Play-to-end-of-section mode can be triggered by hitting the Space bar. Hitting the Space bar again will stop the playhead.
2. In this mode, the playhead will only progress until it reaches the end of a section (i.e. just before the next cue point). When this happens, Designer enters in a holding state. To indicate this, the button will flash at twice the normal speed and the playhead will remain static, although video and other content will continue to play.

When this happens, you can use the Next and Previous Section jump buttons to advance to the next section (i.e. trigger the next cue).

Loop-section

Loop-section play mode can be triggered by hitting the right hand Shift key. Hitting the right-hand Shift key again will stop the cursor.

In this mode, the playhead will progress until it reaches the end of a section, i.e. just before the next cue point. At this point, the playhead will loop back immediately to the beginning of the section and will continue playing from there.

Stop

Left-clicking the Stop button on screen will stop the playhead regardless of which play mode you are in. If you are using the keyboard, press the shortcut key for the play mode you are in to stop the cursor (i.e. the play keys act as toggles).

Previous section

Left-clicking the Previous-section button will make the cursor jump to the previous section if the cursor is on the first bar of the current section; otherwise the playhead will jump to the first bar of the current section.

You can also jump to the previous section using the comma , key on the keyboard.

Next section

Left-clicking the Next-section button will make the playhead advance to the start of the next section. If the playhead is in holding mode at the end of the section, Designer returns to Play-to-end-of-section mode. This button is therefore the equivalent of hitting the next cue.

You can also jump to the next section using the period/full stop . key on the keyboard.

Return-to-start-of-track

Left-clicking Return-to-start-of-track brings the playhead back to the very beginning of the track. Note that the software will stop playing when you click this button.

Next/Previous track from a setlist

Once you have created a set-list and selected it, left-clicking the Next-track and Previous-track buttons will make you step through the selected set-list.