The Timeline Window

When you select fixtures in the Chooser window and apply intensity, position, colour and other features ‘events’ are created in the Timeline window.

This screen consists of three main elements:

The Editor control section where you can select to work with the Live editor tab or any Cuelist you have open. If you have a Cuelist open this section expands to include the Cue navigation controls.
The Cue navigation section, where you can see all the cues in your cuelist, make selections, add and delete cues, and manage how your edits affect output when you are editing a cue that’s playing back
The Timeline section where you can view and manipulate the fade times for all the features that are being applied to your fixtures.

Cuelist tabs

When you first open the Editor’s Chooser or Timeline windows you’ll see the Live tab – this is the equivalent of want other consoles call the ‘Programmer’ or ‘Editor” . If you open a cuelist or start a new one from scratch, Vista adds a new tab labelled with the cuelist name.

You can have several cuelists open at once and switch between them by clicking on the tab you want to work on.

To close and save a Cuelist tab, choose ‘Close Cuelist’ from the Cuelist menu or click the close icon (X) on the cuelist tab.

To save a cuelist at any time select the ‘Save Changes to Cuelist’ option (Alt + S) from the Components menu.

When there is information in the Live tab that is affecting the output, a red clear icon is added to the tab. Click on it to clear the Live tab output.

Playing and moving around a cuelist

At the top of the editor timeline and chooser screens there is a set of player controls:

The buttons work in a similar way to the controls on a CD or DVD player:

This button…	does this…
	Jumps to the first cue in a cuelist.
	Steps backwards to the previous Cue in a cuelist.
	Pauses playback.
	Starts playback of the next cue in the cuelist.
	Steps forwards to the next Cue in a cuelist.
	Jumps to the end of last Cue in a cuelist.

Cuelist Navigator

The cuelist navigation section shows you an overview of all the cues in a cuelist.

Each cue is represented by a mini cue icon in a scrollbar so you can see all the cues you’ve stored. As you add more cues more icons are added to the scrollbar and if there are more cues than can fit in the cue tile (or table or layout) view the scrollabar becomes shaded and you can drag the shaded area to show different areas of the cuelist in the list, table and layout views.

The cue scrollbar includes buttons to switch the navigator view and to add or delete cues.

This icon…	does this…
Tiles view	Shows the cues as a series of tiles. If there are more cues than can fit in this area the scrollbar highlights the area you are viewing and you can drag it to show other cues.
Table view	Shows the cues as a table with columns for the cue’s name, number, fade time, follow time, blocking status, included features, fixture count and SmartFX
Layout view	Shows the cues on a timeline. This view is useful if have cues with follow times that mean they overlap other cues. You can move cues and set follow times by dragging cues on the timeline.
	Zooms the layout view to fit all the cues in available space.

Tiles View

In the ‘Tiles’ view:

each cue tile shows the number, name, duration and start of cue action
the cue or cues that are visible in the, in the timeline section shows with a green underline
cues that have played show with a blue fill colour.
the selected cue shows with a blue outline and with white text. Click on a tab to select it, shift-click or ctrl-click to select a range or group of cues.

You can click on a tile’s start action, cue number, name or duration label and enter a new value. The cue number cannot be changed to a value that would mean changing the order of the cue tiles.

You can right-click on a selected cue or in the blank area to the right of the cue list to open a popup menu:

With these options you can:

open the cue or cuelist properties window
set the Cue Follow mode (aka Cue start action) for the selected cue(s)
block, superblock or unblock the selected cue
set the cue to be a Mark (Move in Black) cue
append a cue at the end of the cuelist or insert a new cue before or after the selected cue or at the playhead position.
delete or renumber the selected cue(s)
revert (or undo) changes to the selected cue(s)
change the start time of the selected cue(s)
remove any alias cue links (without deleting any cues or events)
add an audio file
cut or copy and paste or paste special (paste with options).the selected cues
change the appearance of the cue tiles by adding or removing fields

Table View

In the ‘Table’ view:

each cue shows as a row in a spreadsheet style view
the selected cue shows with a blue fill and white text. Click on a row to select a cue, shift-click or ctrl-click to select a range or group of cues.

You can double-click on a tile’s cue number, name or duration label and enter a new value. The cue number cannot be changed to a value that would mean changing the order of the cue tiles.