Midi, more room for expressions, re-usable globals, transition tool(s)

[gregRocksSoHard]

Thanks for a great piece of software! It's doing (most of) what I want really early with a very low barrier to entry.

I fell into an APC Mini Mk 1 and I'm writing an MMV project for it.
There's a handful of things I'm missing that would make MMV better at helping me make my pretty moving pictures. I did look around in the manual and online. I'd love to see workarounds and depths that I haven't found yet to do this.

1) Midi out. I want to see the blinky lights behind the buttons when something happens. In grid controllers this would let users do way more complicated stuff in performing without getting lost.

2) A bigger expression modifier text box or pop-out window for expressions. I can't see what I'm doing! I'm writing exprTk in a text editor and copy-pasting back and forth. (edit: I get the 'update' window now. Sometimes. Don't understand it yet, but nvm.)

3) Re-usable globals or even user functions or objects or something. I don't see a way to re-use my globals besides using 'save as' for the project and starting over.

4) A linkable "transitions" module or some kind of centralized way to manage wipes, dissolves, cuts, whatever. It doesn't need to be comprehensive. Comparable to a 90s prosumer video mixer would be awesome. I know these transitions are cheesy. They have emotional meaning to me. ;)

5) Linking in the 'blend' module. Cycling through blend modes (even input order?) via midi would be useful to me.

Maybe I'm asking more of MMV than it was intended to do. I like it and it's *so close* to everything I want.

[gregRocksSoHard]

... did I say something I wasn't supposed to?

[Sadler]

No, I think everyone appreciates when features are suggested or there's any contribution to the forum (I do). Why there was no response, I can only say from my pov.

1. Not relevant to me
2. I agree for the odd occasion when I do longer scripts but not enough to respond.
3. I didn't fully understand
4. Already requested (playlist transitions)
5. I agree that in few cases (some addons) it would be handy to automate the 'long' lists but in most cases this is by design because its best not to change these at run-time (sometimes I'd like to change fonts but these are mostly too slow to load). However, there's nothing stopping you (and it's probably better) to create a scene with a bunch of blend modules, each configured to your preferred selection and controlled by an InputSelector.

Again, from my pov, there was nothing amazing or new and if your requests been more thought out and generalised - maybe, just maybe, someone would have responded. But, as TKS said earlier, the forum is very quiet these days. Perhaps to be expected for a decade old piece of software.

[gregRocksSoHard]

1) Does "not relevant to me" mean it won't happen? I'd just like some visual feedback from my midi controller -- I'd guess others have button-y Ableton controllers with a lot of backlight and indicator light options. Sending midi out from MMV would let me see things like what's going on in another scene from a controller. With limited preview window options, this would help me a lot. It would allow for a lot of other uses (controlling external lighting, synths, whatever) as well. I haven't seen this discussed at any length elsewhere in the forum. Was this ruled out or did it get a negative response earlier that I missed?

3) I'm getting a better idea of how the developers envision managing globals across projects as I do more. NVM.

Can you tell me more about what I ought to expect from a decade-old piece of software? Is there a more appropriate place to ask? Should I have asked before buying it?

[Sadler]

Different users have different ways of working and I'm just a regular user. If midi feedback was asked for by a fair proportion of users then the devs would take notice. For me, I get enough feedback from the visual. I have an apc-40 but I don't use it - I prefer TouchOSC and feedback would not help me - the lights turn on and off when you press them and the visual responds.

The power of globals to share values is one of their major advantages. Globals and linked values could be improved (IMHO). There are several discussions about them on this forum.

After 10 years you can expect a solid piece of software that has stood the test of time and which has been maintained and improved over that decade.

There is not a more appropriate place to ask about Magic, this forum is the place. Almost every time I'm out projecting visuals I get several people asking how I do what I do and I'm happy to show them. Many will take a photo of my screen saying they will probably buy a license. It is a personal decision to buy or not but with the demo and this forum there's no reason not to be informed and I would always recommend Magic over many other softwares.

[gregRocksSoHard]

I've been trying to avoid writing a separate script but I guess that's The Way. Thanks.

[gregRocksSoHard]

I guess I saved 20 bucks by doing without midi output.