If you’re using ProTally, I’ve just released a new version that supports custom colors for each tally box, rather than global colors applied to all boxes.
You can download the latest version on Github: https://github.com/josephdadams/ProTally/releases
Awhile back, I wrote about the Shade Controller I created using Node.js and a USB relay running on a Raspberry Pi Zero. It works great. We can raise and lower the shade from anywhere on the network. However, I’ve always wanted a way to control this a little more automatically. The lighting volunteer is typically the person who operates the remote for the shade, so I really wanted a way to automate that part of the process for them so the shade can raise and lower exactly when we want it to, without them having to use an extra tool or device.
As I was working on some networking changes to one of our lighting consoles (we use Jands L5 consoles running Chroma-Q’s Vista 3), I had an idea… What if we could monitor the Streaming ACN lighting network for data changes just like any lighting node, and use that to trigger an action?
If you’ve not heard of Streaming ACN (sometimes called sACN or its official name E 1.31), it is an ethernet based protocol for sending DMX address and value information from a lighting console to receiver nodes which then relay the DMX information to lighting fixtures. It uses multicast traffic to send the information so it is very fast and efficient. At my church, we have several DMX universes of lighting information going over the network for each auditorium, controlling all of the light fixtures.
Luckily for me, a base protocol module for E 1.31 was already available for Node.js. So, using that module, I sat down and prototyped a solution and had something working in just a couple of hours. I’m calling my software sACN Translator. I’ve deployed it to a Raspberry Pi for production. It supports a simple REST API to allow you to control which universes it should listen to, as well as the fixtures to run triggers for. I also created a simple web interface which utilizes this API.
Here is how I set it up on our system to trigger the shade controller. I started by adding two fixtures to the L5 console on Universe 1 (where I happened to have some spare room in my DMX addresses). I called these fixtures “Shades Up” and “Shades Down”, with DMX Addresses 511 and 512.
Then, I added entries in sACN Translator to monitor Universe 1 on the network and look for value changes to fixture addresses 511 and 512. I set it to run an HTTP trigger any time the values reaches 255 (100%). So, when I put the Shades Down fixture at 100% on the lighting console, the software sees that value, looks for a match in its list of fixtures, and then runs the corresponding HTTP request on the Raspberry Pi Zero connected to the USB relay to trigger the action which lowers the shade.
Here is a video of it in action:
Pretty cool! I decided to use separate fixture addresses for each trigger action, but I didn’t have to. I could have just one fixture and watch for two separate lighting values.
So now, all the operator has to do is run the cues like normal, and the programming will do the rest! I’ve made this software available for free on my Github repository. Let me know how it works for you!
Do you find yourself ever doing repetitive tasks over and over again in Google Docs? (Or any of the Google Suite Apps?) I sure do. At my church, we create a Google Doc every week for all of the “talking points”, the parts of the service that aren’t song or sermon, where we script out what someone needs to say or communicate during that portion.
A couple years ago, I started creating template files to help my team do this every week, because having the template already there with some common headers, the service date, etc. removed the barrier to get down to writing the actual words. Creating the files wasn’t too complicated, and after awhile, I started making them “in bulk”, where I would sit down and just make 3-4 months worth of documents at a time, making copies of my master template, editing the new file and updating the date, etc. Then we added a second auditorium, which doubled the amount of documents I needed to create.
With the new year, it was time to create more documents, so I decided this time around that I would create a script to help automate this task using the framework within Google Apps Script.
If you’ve not heard of or used Google Apps Script (GAS), it’s a scripting language based on Javascript, for light-weight application development. All of the code runs on Google’s servers to interact with your documents. If you’ve ever used an “add-on” in Google Apps, it’s using this scripting framework.
It’s pretty easy to use if you know Javascript, and it’s easy to get started. From any document, just go to Tools > Script Editor. This opens a new tab where you can start writing Apps Script.
Here is my script:
function myFunction()
{
var ui = DocumentApp.getUi();
var templateDocId = '[templateid]'; // put the document ID of the master template file here
var prompt_numberOfDocs = ui.prompt('How many Talking Point Documents do you want to create?');
var prompt_startingDate = ui.prompt('What is the starting date? Please enter in MM/dd/yyyy.');
var numberOfDocs = parseInt(prompt_numberOfDocs.getResponseText());
var startingDate = prompt_startingDate.getResponseText();
var prompt_venueResponse = ui.prompt('Venue', 'Create Documents for both Auditoriums? If no, please type in the Venue Title and click "No".', ui.ButtonSet.YES_NO);
var venueTitle = '';
var bothAuditoriums = true;
if (prompt_venueResponse.getSelectedButton() == ui.Button.NO)
{
venueTitle = prompt_venueResponse.getResponseText();
bothAuditoriums = false;
}
var date = new Date(startingDate);
var htmlOutput = HtmlService
.createHtmlOutput('Creating ' + numberOfDocs + ' documents. Please stand by...
')
.setWidth(300)
.setHeight(100);
ui.showModalDialog(htmlOutput, 'Talking Points - Task Running');
for (var i = 0; i < numberOfDocs; i++)
{
var loopDate = new Date(date.getTime()+ ((i * 7) * 3600000 * 24)); // uses the looping interval to get the starting date and add 7 days to it, creating a new date object
var documentName = 'Talking Points - ' + Utilities.formatDate(loopDate, Session.getScriptTimeZone(), "MMMM dd, yyyy");
var documentDate = Utilities.formatDate(loopDate, Session.getScriptTimeZone(), "MM/dd/yyyy");
if (bothAuditoriums)
{
createNewTalkingPointDocument(templateDocId, documentName + ' (Aud 1)', 'Aud 1', documentDate);
createNewTalkingPointDocument(templateDocId, documentName + ' (Aud 2)', 'Aud 2', documentDate);
}
else
{
documentName += ' (' + venueTitle + ')';
createNewTalkingPointDocument(templateDocId, documentName, venueTitle, documentDate);
}
}
htmlOutput = HtmlService
.createHtmlOutput('google.script.host.close();')
.setWidth(300)
.setHeight(100);
ui.showModalDialog(htmlOutput, 'Talking Points - Task Running');
}
function createNewTalkingPointDocument(templateDocumentId, documentName, venueTitle, documentDate)
{
//Make a copy of the template file
var documentId = DriveApp.getFileById(templateDocumentId).makeCopy().getId();
//Rename the copied file
DriveApp.getFileById(documentId).setName(documentName);
//Get the document body as a variable
var body = DocumentApp.openById(documentId).getBody();
//Insert the entries into the document
body.replaceText('##Venue##', venueTitle);
body.replaceText('##Date##', documentDate);
}
Once you have a script in place, you can choose triggers for when it should run, like when it is opened, or on a schedule, etc.
Here is the new template with the script in action:
First, I ask how many documents should be created. 1, 5, 500, whatever I need.
Next, I ask for the starting date. We specifically use these for Sunday services, so I’ve programmed the script to take this starting date and then calculate every 7 days when creating multiple documents.
Then, I ask the user if they want to create documents for both auditoriums, or if this is for a special service or off-site service, etc. Typically we want them for both auditoriums, but the one-off feature makes things easy for those types of services too.
As the script runs, it displays this dialog box. Creating that many documents can take awhile, and I wanted the user to be aware of this. The box goes away automatically when the process is completed.
Now that we have this, I can pass the task on to anyone on our team, anytime they need these documents! And it saves a good bit of time. I definitely spent less time creating this script than I would have spent creating the 3-4 months worth of documents manually, and now I never have to do that again!
How can you use Google Apps Script to automate some of your more repetitive tasks?
A few months back, I shared about the client-side countdown clock script that I created for our team to use. It worked pretty well for its purposes, using Dropbox as the platform to share and update data between the computer creating the clocks and the computer viewing the clocks. The initial goal was to create something that required no backend server and would be easy to run on any computer.
It served us well but we quickly outgrew it with the desire to be able to publish clocks in realtime, not simply relying on the viewer client to refresh itself every 15 seconds to look for new data. So, I created a server based solution using Node.js.
I decided I wanted to run this project on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+, so I picked up this kit on Amazon. I wanted an easy way to spin up a web server that wasn’t tied to any production machine, and this does a great job.
Dubbed TimeKeeper, this project runs an Express web server within Node and has a REST API, which allows the user to poll for existing data as well as create new entries. As new entries are added, they are sent out to all connected clients in real time using the socket.io library.
Rooms:
Rooms allow you to control and specify which timers appear. This is helpful if you are running clocks in multiple venues or instances, and only want certain timers to appear on certain viewer screens.
Timers:
Timers are the objects that TimeKeeper will count down to, based on the viewer’s current local system time.
Messages:
Messages can be sent and displayed on viewer clients.
After implementing the API, I created a Dashboard custom panel to interact with the server. This serves as the primary interface for our volunteers. Because the panel fetches new data from the server on a recurring schedule, multiple computers can have the panel open and all stay in sync about what timer and message objects are currently being displayed.
We’ve been using this software for a few months now and it’s working great! I intended to write about it sooner, but with a busy work and family life, finding time to write for this blog can be a challenge!
The next version will support trigger actions when clocks hit a specified time or run out. I also plan to integrate with other clock systems to show time left on video playbacks, Planning Center Online, etc., when I have the time!
If this is useful or helpful to you, I’ve made it available on my Github repository.
Every year, my church has a “night of worship”, a worship service in the heart of the city at an outdoor stage, where we sing songs for a couple of hours. Because it doesn’t get dark enough to use projectors for lyrics until the service is almost over, in the past we have relied on using small flat screen TVs to try to show some words for people to follow along. Big white letters on a black background, nothing fancy. Of course, it’d be great if we could just rent an LED video wall, but the cost to do that has been too expensive for us to do in the past.
So, I had an idea: What if we could somehow send the lyrics out of ProPresenter to everyone’s phones, in real time, and let them use their own screens to follow along?
I gave myself a couple of limitations:
Awhile back, I started tinkering around with the undocumented ProPresenter API. I say undocumented because it is not officially offered as a way to access ProPresenter data and control it. Some people have done a great job at figuring out how ProPresenter sends data over the network between their apps which allows us to extend the software to meet unique needs. Basically, by using websockets, we can interact with ProPresenter which will return JSON-formatted data reflecting information about songs in the library, playlist, the index of the current song, the current slide and next slide information, etc.
I created a local Node.js project and in just a few hours, I had something ready to alpha test! My approach was to have a web browser open on the local network that could poll and listen to changes from ProPresenter, and then relay that new data to a web server. That web server would then relay those changes to all of the connected clients, much like a chat server would send a message to everyone.
I showed it to my team, but the idea was tabled for awhile because we thought it through and didn’t want people buried in their phones while singing. However, as we got closer to the event, we realized that the two TV screens we rented might not be sufficient, and I was asked to work on this again.
As I was preparing this for production, I discussed briefly with our IT team about setting up an internal server running Node.js that could be accessed on port 80 (the default HTTP port) outside the firewall, but bandwidth, security and performance for hundreds of clients connecting through the Internet all at the same time was a concern. With that in mind, I turned to Amazon EC2.
If you haven’t heard of it, Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) is basically virtual servers “in the cloud” (i.e. remotely and accessible from the internet). It’s not too hard to set up, and they even have a free tier available for 12 months, so you can try it out for free! I had never used it before this project, so I actually followed a tutorial to help me get it going.
Once I had my Linux server set up on Amazon EC2, I assigned an “Elastic IP” (Amazon’s term for a type of static IP), and then I bought a domain name, fglyrics.com, for $12 and tied it to that IP. It was up and online in minutes. I installed Node.js on my new server, copied over my code, and started it running.
About the software:
I call the software Presentation Bridge, because it acts as a “bridge” or connector between the presentation software and all of the clients.
When you first load the Bridge page, you have two options: Configuring your ProPresenter connection, and Connecting to a Bridge. In order to connect to ProPresenter, you have to enable the network settings. It relies on both the “remote” and “stage display” controls to get all of the data needed.
When connecting to ProPresenter in Presentation Bridge, you’ll need to supply the local ProPresenter IP address and port, as well as the control password and local library path. This is what allows the Bridge to pull all of the slide images and other information. This is standardized across all of our ProPresenter installs at our church, so it’s always the same path for us. It should be the full, absolute path from the root of your drive.
When you’ve successfully connected, the gray dot at the top of the ProPresenter config box will turn green. If there’s an error, it will turn red. Status information is displayed in a log area further down the screen.
To connect to a bridge, choose one from the dropdown list. If it is configured to have a control password, you’ll have to enter that in order to connect. Adding bridges and making changes to existing bridges can be managed by clicking the settings wheel. It supports multiple bridges, which I added as a feature since we have multiple auditoriums and may want to use more than one simultaneously.
As the operator runs ProPresenter, the slides will be displayed on the Bridge screen with the currently selected slide showing a blinking red border, so it is clear which slide is currently being displayed. You can browse the playlists and items in the playlist. You have the option to send the current data from ProPresenter to the server (or turn it off), turn on a logo (configured in Bridge settings, useful if you’re currently not connected to ProPresenter, etc.). I also implemented the NoSleep.js library which will attempt to keep any connected mobile devices awake.
On the viewer/client side, I implemented three types of “listeners”:
All three listeners can be accessed through the browser. The data is relayed from the server using the socket.io library. I tested it on my iOS devices, Android devices, and even my Amazon Fire TV stick on multiple browsers and they all work really well. Across an internet connection, the moment a slide is clicked in ProPresenter, that slide is visible on the listener devices.
We used it during our Night of Worship this year and it worked great! I used a hotspot for the Bridge connection and then everyone connected to the Text Listener using the internet connection on their own phones. It uses very little data since it is just a text stream, which is really nice!
Overall, I enjoyed creating this software for our unique need. I plan to extend the functionality down the road as I have time, including attaching “triggers” to specific slides as they are activated, to send RossTalk messages, fire HTTP cues, etc. on the local production network.
If you’d like to try Presentation Bridge out for yourself, the code is freely available on my Github repository. You can also request to demo it using my live site running on Amazon EC2. I wrote the software to support multiple bridges at a time, in case you have multiple meeting spaces or venues that need to run simultaneously. When more than one Bridge is enabled and running, any users that connect are presented with a drop-down list and can select the Bridge they want to join.
At my church, we have a smaller auditorium that has a giant window to let in natural light. We don’t use it much during services because the light can wash out our projection screens, but it’s wonderful to have during the week to let in light. We also like to have it open before services begin and close it right as we get started. It helps to create a nice environment.
These shades came with a very easy to use RF remote. Actually, it came with two remotes. Since we never need or use two, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to hack one of them and turn it into a network-controlled remote? This would allow us to control the shades from anywhere, not just within the RF range! Plus, I like automation and making things more accessible and efficient and I wanted to try to create something inexpensive rather than just purchasing something already made.
I purchased this USB relay off Amazon:
I figured I could use the relays to electrically “click” the buttons on the remote. So I took the remote apart to see how it looked on the inside. Here is a picture of the remote outside of its shell.
I knew there was probably a way to use the GPIO pins of a Raspberry Pi and transistors to trigger the button presses, but that’s not my forte. I don’t know a lot about circuity and electronics at that level, but I know how to solder (well, sort of. Don’t look too closely at my work.) So I soldered some wires onto the remote buttons.
When I touched the wires together, the remote activated! The concept worked, so I hooked it up to the relay to begin the development and testing.
I knew I wanted to control the remote using Node JS. It’s a great lightweight platform that runs on multiple operating systems, including Raspberry Pi’s with Linux. I found control software written in C, C++, Python, shell scripts, etc. for the USB Relay that I had bought, but nothing in Node JS. At least, nothing native without using DLLs and that sort of thing.
It’s been a long time since I wrote in C++ and I’ve never used Python, but I can read both languages enough to learn about the control protocol. I wanted to keep mine running with the least amount of dependencies so it could work on multiple operating systems (not just on the Raspberry Pi, for example).
In about an hour, using the Node-HID library, I had a working script in Node JS to turn my 2-relay device on and off. I decided to make the control code for the relay into a separate Node JS module so that it can be used in other projects. If you want to use it, I’ve made it available on Github as well as published it in the NPM registry.
Once I had the control of the relay that I needed, I whipped up a quick Node JS project running express to host a simple web server that would accept a “shades up” and a “shades down” HTTP request and then trigger the appropriate relay.
const USBRelay = require("./USBRelay.js");
const relay = new USBRelay();
//express API variables
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
//http server variables
const http = require('http').Server(app);
const listenPort = 4400;
//routes
app.get("/shades_up", function (req, res) {
ShadesUp();
res.send({returnStatus: "shades-up"});
});
app.get("/shades_down", function (req, res) {
ShadesDown();
res.send({returnStatus: "shades-down"});
});
http.listen(listenPort, function () {
console.log("listening on *:" + listenPort);
});
function ShadesUp()
{
relay.setState(1, true);
setTimeout(function () {
relay.setState(1, false);
}, 1000);
}
function ShadesDown()
{
relay.setState(2, true);
setTimeout(function () {
relay.setState(2, false);
}, 1000);
}
And by making an HTTP request like:
http://ipaddress:4400/shades_up
I can trigger Relay 1 on my device to turn on for one second, and then turn off, simulating the button press.
Because we use Ross Dashboard as our go-to production interface, I added Up/Down buttons to our FOH custom panels to send those commands to the relay server.
I then deployed the ShadeController Node JS project to a Raspberry Pi Zero, and put all the parts into my project box. I had our IT department make a DHCP reservation for the Pi so that it would always have the same IP address, making it easier to program around.
So, what does this really gain us, if the remote was already pretty easy to use?
Overall, this was a fairly inexpensive project.
I ended up spending a little bit more because I bought a Raspberry Pi Zero W kit with a case and some other adapters that I didn’t already have, like a mini HDMI to HDMI connector, but if I end up buying another Zero, I’ll take the Pi case out of this project box and use it. I also bought a pack of project boxes for about $8 that were way too small and didn’t fit my parts, but I plan to use them for some other projects down the road.
I hope this gives you some ideas on ways you could automate or more efficiently control your non-networked equipment through the use of relays! I certainly learned a lot during this process and am looking forward to implementing it in other areas.
If you’ve been looking for ProTally support for OBS Studio, here it is!
On your computer running OBS, you’ll need to download and configure the OBS Websockets to be able to connect.
Tally address fields are based on sources available in your OBS scenes.
Download the latest release here: https://github.com/josephdadams/ProTally/releases/tag/v1.3.0
I hope this is helpful to you!
