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The Programmer

The programmer is phix's live editing workspace. It is the place where all attribute changes happen before they are saved or output to fixtures.

How the programmer works#

Think of the programmer as a transparent layer that sits on top of all playback. When you select fixtures and change their values, those changes are held in the programmer. The programmer always wins — it overrides whatever executors are playing back.

select → edit → store (to preset or cue)                 or clear (discard)

Programmer priority#

The programmer has the highest priority over all other sources. This means:

  • If executor 1 is playing a cue with dimmer at 50%, and you set dimmer to 100% in the programmer, the fixture outputs 100%.
  • This makes it easy to override any running show.
  • Clearing the programmer releases control back to executors.

Setting a fade time in the programmer#

You can set a fade time so that attribute changes from the programmer fade smoothly instead of snapping:

ptime 2.5    -- set programmer fade time to 2.5 secondsptime 0      -- snap (no fade)

Clearing the programmer#

Clear all values in the programmer (does not affect stored presets or running cues):

clear

Clear only the selection (without affecting programmer values):

clear selection

What the programmer shows#

The programmer holds:

  • Attribute values you've set manually (set dimmer 1.0)
  • Attribute values applied from presets (preset 1.1)
  • Effect values started from the command line

Values in the programmer are shown highlighted in the Attribute Panel.

Storing from the programmer#

Once you've built a look you want to keep, you can:

  • Store as a preset — store preset 3.1 "Red" — saves the current programmer values to a named slot
  • Record into a cue — seq 1 record cue 2 — captures programmer values into a cue
  • Update a running cue — update 1 — merges programmer values into the cue currently playing on executor 1

Blind mode#

Blind mode lets you program in the background without affecting the live output. While in blind mode, the programmer runs "invisibly" — fixtures on stage continue playing the live show.

See Blind Mode for full details.