Control Panel
Control Panel gives the people who use a system day to day a simple set of buttons, each firing a task, without exposing the rest of Cloud.
A new site needs Control Panel enabling first, which creates its first page.
Control Panel is designed to work best on a mobile device. The editing interface adds a grey background panel to make editing easier.
Pages
Page settings live in the Control Panel settings pane.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Page Title | Text shown at the top left of the page |
| Page Background Colour | A solid background colour for the page |
| Page Background | An uploaded image. Images fit to the page but are not scaled down, so a large file will be slow to load |
| Action | Notes |
|---|---|
| Add page | Specify where in the page order it goes |
| Duplicate page | Copies all settings including buttons to a specified page order. Pages can be moved this way, then the original deleted |
| Limit Access | Select which users in the project can see the current page. Pages are silently removed from navigation when a user cannot see them |
| Remove page | Deletes the page settings. Tasks assigned to its buttons are kept |
Page types
There are six page types, each containing different controls.
- 8 Buttons
- Up to 8 customisable buttons on a page, each of which can fire a task.
- 4 Buttons + Override Controls
Up to 4 customisable buttons that can fire a task, plus a colour wheel override control on the right of the page.
- Override Controls + 4 Buttons
The same, with the override control on the left of the page.
- 2 Override Controls
- Up to 2 colour wheel override controls.
- Spaces
- Direct Space control, with feedback, on devices that support Spaces.
- Tags
- Direct Tag control, with feedback, on devices that support Tags.
Control configuration
Different control types have different configuration options, which can also depend on the devices in a site.
Every colour in the editor is picked from a field carrying the same two rows beneath it: a Recent row of the last eight colours picked in this browser, and a Proposed colours row holding the colours this Control Panel already uses, so a new control can be matched to the pages around it. Page background and page title colours are solid; button and Space colours carry an alpha channel as well.
Buttons
1. Open the button's configuration by selecting it.
2. Choose what it fires. Pick existing tasks, or add new actions. Actions added here go into a new task when the button is created — rename it using the hashed-line box above the actions.
3. Enable the button with the toggle.
4. Set its appearance. Set the button text, then its background and text colours. A toggle matches it to the Cloud colours instead.
5. Check it. Preview shows the result. Toggle a dark or light background to see how it will look against yours.
6. Save. Select Save Changes to save the button and create a task for any new actions.
Overrides
1. Open the override's configuration by selecting it.
2. Select the fixtures the override control should adjust. Select several by navigating back to the controller list after each selection.
3. Enable the control with the toggle.
4. Choose the controls it shows — just the colour wheel, or intensity and colour temperature sliders as well.
5. Optionally label it and set its colours. Left unset, the Run button takes the Cloud colours.
The colour itself is picked on a wheel, sized for a finger on a phone. Drag it, or type the three channel values beside it — each follows the other. Any slider shown has a field of its own that can be typed into as well as dragged.
The wheel carries the same Recent and Proposed colours rows as the editor's pickers. A light has no transparency, so a swatch applies fully opaque here however it was stored, and the colour picked joins Recent only when the Run button is pressed.
Show Raw Values (0-255) reads every channel it covers — colour, colour temperature and intensity — on the 0–255 scale rather than as percentages, which is a choice about reading them only: what the control sends is the same either way. The percentages themselves are shown as whole numbers.
In the editor the same control is a preview: the wheel, the toggle and the swatch rows do not respond, because the whole tile is the button that opens this configuration. The rows still show colours picked elsewhere, but a preview can never add one.
Spaces
The Spaces interface works much like the Spaces tab on a supported device — see Spaces for how it behaves.
- Add a Spaces page and select (configure) in the Control Panel editor.
- Pick the device the page controls, then configure the options for the Space interface.
- Once enabled, spaces can be edited to be pinned or hidden from users.
The line above the interface names that device. Before one has been picked it reads No compatible device has been configured for this page., and if the device the page was pointed at has since gone, Selected device cannot be found. Configure a new one?
Tags
The Tags interface works much like the Tags tab on a supported device — see Tags for how it behaves.
- Add a Tags page and select (configure) in the Control Panel editor.
- Pick the device the page controls, then configure the options for the Tags interface.
- Once enabled, tags can be edited to be pinned or hidden from users.
Tags pages carry the same device line, and say the same when the device is missing.
Both page types are available on a multi-site's Control Panel as well as a site's own; there the device list covers the Express controllers across all of its sites.
Using Control Panel
Select Go to Control Panel. It works in a desktop browser and is optimised for mobile.
Each site's Control Panel has its own URL, from which users cannot navigate into the wider Cloud interface — they sign in and land straight on the panel.
A user needs three permissions to use it:
- Site:View all
- Control Panel:View
- Task:Execute
Controls behave in different ways:
- Buttons — select a button to dispatch a task. The button gives no feedback
- Override — choose overrides and select to dispatch. The override control gives no feedback
- Spaces — adjust the live controller state and commit the changes, with feedback on the current state. See Spaces
- Tags — adjust the live controller state and commit the changes, with feedback on the current state. See Tags