Advanced usage of the control panel

With the Store and the API Log tabs you can control every aspect of the Pixotope universe.

With great power comes great responsibility … and many ways to get unwanted results.

Make a backup of your show file before changing show file parameters through the control panel!

Control properties of current show

Using the Store tab you can control all properties of the current show file.

Go to the Store tab
Search for the parameter you would like to read/control
Click and drag the red circle onto the canvas

The properties are alphabetically sorted and grouped based on the State of the Store service.

Learn more about the Store API - State and its allowed values and property types

Replicate specific Pixotope functionality

The API Log tab lists all occurring API messages of the Pixotope network. You can

listen to and read values from them
(re-)trigger them

Start listening

Go to the API Log tab
If not already done, click the Play button in the bottom right corner to start logging messages
Use the x button to clear the logs
- Use the Keep options to set the maximum amount of messages to keep.

Find the action to replicate

Trigger an action in Director which you would like to replicate or get data from
Click the Pause button in the bottom right corner to stop listening to more messages
Find the corresponding API message using the message type filters or the search field

In a Pixotope network there is continuous message traffic, which might make it harder to find the correct message. Filtering on the correct message type might help.

Double clicking a message in the API Log copies it to the clipboard. Depending on which one you double click, it copies either only the Topic, the Message or both.

Main message types

Type	Details	Used to
Get	Get a state or non-state value from any service	Get value
Set	Request a change of a state or non-state value of any service	Set value
Update	Returned on a Get request when state or non-state variables change	Get value
Call	Service specific black box RPC function call	Trigger action
CallResult	CallResult - Response to a Call	Get value

Learn more about their details and other message types in Pixotope API - Message Scheme

Add a widget using this action

Click and drag the red circle onto the canvas
Select a widget based on if you are getting or setting a value or triggering an action

Suggested widgets based on message type

Type	Default action	Main widgets
Get, Update, Call Result	Read (Get value)	Multiline text Text Number
Set, Call	Send (Set value/Trigger action)	Trigger button Toggle (use ON/OFF click trigger) Tab (use Tab click trigger)

You can change to Send or Read (default action) using the Trigger toggle next to the action.

Update a Send action

Click on the action in the action list to open the API-Call Editor
Change the Topic and Message to fit your needs
- The messages are in a JSON format

Learn more about the Pixotope API - Message Scheme

Current limitation:

API messages can only contain fixed values. Parsing source values of a widget or other dynamic values is not yet possible.

Update a Read action

Message results come in a JSON format. To only get a specific property use the dot notation

Click on the action in the action list to open the Code Editor
Change the query value on the left to retrieve a specific value

Listen to variable changes within a blueprint

By default, blueprint changes are not broadcasted to the network. If you need to variable changes within a blueprint to broadcast Update messages, do the following:

Add a
- Get Update Broadcaster node
- Broadcast Property Changed Update node
- Self node
Connect them as shown below
Enter the variable name you want to get updates from in the Property path field on the Broadcast Property Changed Update node