Video Transcript
UCI Creation and Management
9m 51s
0:08
The Q-SYS User Control Interface, or UCI for short, provides the means for an end user to control parts
0:15
of the Q-SYS design via a networked device such as a Q-SYS Touchscreen,
0:20
a Windows-based PC, or an IOS device...
0:25
The choice is yours as to how much
0:27
or how little you would like the user of a UCI to be able to control the system,
0:31
and the creativity you use in designing the UCI can go a long way to enhance the user’s total experience.
0:38
Don’t worry, there’s no programming experience required to make a UCI!
0:43
You can build robust UCI screens by simply dragging any Q-SYS DSP
0:47
or control element from the schematic into the UCI Editor.
0:52
Luck for you, you don’t need to learn a new platform in order to build these UCIs
0:57
and you don’t need separate control hardware to run the UCIs.
1:01
All that’s required is to add a UCI deployment feature license to your core processor.
1:06
Which will allow you to deploy your UCIs to any device.
1:11
In this video we’ll go through the basic steps of creating and editing the basic properties of a UCI.
1:18
Your first step is to open the UCI Editor, by navigating to the Left-Side Pane.
1:24
The first thing you’ll notice is that there is already a UCI here titled Inventory Status,
1:30
which displays the current status of every Inventory item in your design.
1:35
These are categorized by the Location you provide in their Properties.
1:39
You cannot remove, rename, or edit this UCI.
1:42
This screen is what we call the UCI Editor.
1:46
The UCI interface itself has replaced our main Schematic page,
1:49
and you can see a new side panel which lists all of the pages, layers, and objects on this UCI.
1:57
We’ll talk more about those in a minute.
1:59
First, we’ll create a new UCI, by pressing the plus icon in the UCI panel.
2:05
You now have a blank UCI with one blank Page in it.
2:09
We can add almost any control from our design into this blank UCI space,
2:14
as well as a variety of external images.
2:16
To add a control, simply open the component’s control panel, select the controls you want,
2:24
and copy and paste them into your UCI window.
2:28
I used the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V shortcut,
2:31
but you could also use the right-click menu to select Copy and Paste.
2:43
Alternatively, you could drag these controls up to the UCI’s name tab, and then drop them onto your UCI.
2:52
Or … and this is what I usually do
2:55
you could undock your UCI window by dragging its tab away from the main screen.
3:01
You could either move this to a second computer monitor,
3:05
or you could split your screen by releasing the mouse button on one of these four split-screen icons
3:13
Splitting your screen makes it extremely easy to drag controls from your Schematic onto your UCI.
3:21
But before you add too much to your UCI, you should make sure your panel is sized for right device.
3:29
If you select your UCI’s name and look at its Properties,
3:34
choose the Panel Type from the available options.
3:39
Once you change your selection,
3:41
the dimensions of the UCI Editor will automatically adjust to the new device.
3:45
This will change the canvas size, but it doesn’t rescale any of the objects.
3:50
So, be sure to do this first, or you may end up needing to reorganize all your UCI elements
3:57
for the correct dimension if you first built it with an incorrect device selected.
4:02
There are a variety of QSC Touchscreen controllers on this list, as well as iPhones, iPads,
4:09
and generic aspect ratio options for displaying on a networked PC.
4:14
For some of these devices, be sure to specify if you want to work in a horizontal Landscape mode,
4:19
or a vertical Portrait mode.
4:22
For most UCIs, you won’t be able to fit every control onto a single screen, even if you wanted to.
4:29
Instead, let’s add a new page to your UCI,
4:32
by pressing the Plus button down here at the bottom and selecting “Add Page.”
4:37
Now we have a fresh UCI page, and we can add more content to this page.
4:43
But now that your UCI has multiple pages,
4:46
you’ll need to decide how you want the user to navigate between them.
4:50
By default, navigation tabs are added to the side.
4:55
You can customize some basic properties of these pages here on the right.
4:59
You can change your Title to rename them.
5:04
You could select an Icon that will appear on the Page tab.
5:12
And you can select a Fill color which will be used for both the Page’s background and the tab color.
5:21
You can also adjust the depth of this tab window by dragging its border with your mouse.
5:26
To further customize these tabs, let’s select the UCI itself and adjust its Properties.
5:33
You could change their Location to dock this navigation bar to the Left, Right, Bottom or Top.
5:39
You can also change the font, and add a colorful Stroke (or border) with these fields here.
5:47
However, if you don’t like any of these options there are other ways to let your
5:52
user navigate between pages as well.
5:55
The user can actually navigate between pages by swiping left or right on the screen,
5:59
rather than using the navigation buttons.
6:02
In this case, you might want to change the Tabs location to “None,” since we’re not using them.
6:08
On the other hand,
6:10
you could disable the swipe ability by finding the “Swipe Disabled” property and activating it.
6:14
Now we have a UCI without navigation tabs or swipe ability – but this might be exactly what you want.
6:21
You see, an important thing to note about using the Page Tabs or the Swipe method is that these
6:26
give the user access to every single page in your UCI.
6:31
But let’s say you have a Maintenance page that you don’t want a casual user to stumble upon,
6:37
or perhaps you have a large number of pages and you want to really customize the paths between them.
6:43
In this case, you can use Navigation buttons.
6:46
You’ll find these in the “Layout” branch on the Schematic Library, in the “UCI” folder.
6:52
The Navigation Button can be placed anywhere on your UCI,
6:56
and you can change its appearance just like any other button.
7:01
Its main property you need to adjust is which Page you want it to open when it is pressed.
7:06
This allows you to create your own custom navigation section,
7:10
and limit the user’s navigation based on the options you present them.
7:14
It’s also worth noting that you can write any label you want on these Navigation buttons,
7:19
while the Navigation tabs will only display the Page’s actual name.
7:24
There are a few more properties here we should mention, such as the Enable Button Swipe property.
7:30
This property allows you to activate multiple buttons without your finger leaving the touchscreen.
7:36
Imagine a paging interface where you can select multiple zones for your announcement.
7:41
If Button Swipe is disabled, then you would need to select each of those zones one by one.
7:46
But, if Button Swipe is enabled,
7:49
you can make one continuous swipe and every button you touch along the way will engage.
7:55
Let’s also look at the Private property.
7:58
When we talk about deploying these UCIs in a later video,
8:01
you’ll learn that a Windows device or an iOS device can manually select from all available UCIs present on the network.
8:09
If you want to exclude a particular UCI from that list, engage Private here.
8:16
That means the UCI can only be displayed by a QSC touchscreen that it is assigned to.
8:22
This is not the same as restricting access to a specific user.
8:27
If you want to require a user to log on to a UCI, that is accomplished in the Administrator tool.
8:33
Navigate to the User Control Interfaces tab, and select the UCI you want to protect.
8:39
Engage the “Require User Logon” button and the UCI will display a keypad screen instead of the UCI.
8:47
A user must input their custom PIN number, as configured in the Users list, in order to access the UCI.
8:55
To log off, you should provide them with a Log Off button, found in the Layout>UCI Folder.
9:05
And a few more things, since we’re already looking at them.
9:07
The Clean Screen button will disable your UCI for thirty seconds, allowing you to physically clean your screen.
9:15
And the URL button allows you to specify a web address.
9:19
Pressing this button will launch the viewers default native web browser and load your hyperlink.
9:25
This is obviously only available on an internet-connected tablet or PC, not on a QSC touchscreen.
9:31
So, that’s the basic structural layout of how to add UCIs and adjust their properties and navigation.
9:38
Go ahead and take a quick break if you’d like.
9:40
In the next videos we’ll look at how further you can customize their appearances and actually deploy them onto a touchscreen.
9:46
See you next time.
Lesson Description
UCI Creation and Management
9m 51s
Demonstrates how to create and manage a User Control Interface in the Q-SYS Designer Software.
Tips and Definitions
UCI Creation and Management
9m 51s
Panel Type: The Panel Type allows for customized UCI display for a specific device.
Private Field: Changing the UCI Private Field limits the UCI to only allow QSC Touch Screens to view them.
Private Field: Changing the UCI Private Field limits the UCI to only allow QSC Touch Screens to view them.
- Adding a new UCI to the Schematic is made simple by clicking the PLUS icon next to the User Control Interfaces tab.
Downloads and Links
UCI Creation and Management
9m 51s