Key Articles
Stardraw Training at InfoComm
Training classes for Stardraw products are taking place in conjunction with
InfoComm in Orlando, Florida. Few seats are left, so act now
to reserve your place. Courses available are as follows:
|
Stardraw Audio/Stardraw A/V - All Levels |
Topics: |
Creating schematics, rack layouts & sales presentations
Modifiers, Fastkeys and Shortcuts Tips and Tricks for Power
Users Creating and managing Symbols Libraries Data Sources
and Reporting |
Date: |
June 6th 2006 |
Time: |
9am - 1pm (Doors open 8am, Breakfast & Lunch
included) |
Cost: |
$299 per person |
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|
|
Stardraw Control - Intermediate Class |
Topics: |
Creating powerful user interfaces Controlling products by IR, Ethernet, RS232
Creating and editing infrared drivers Variables and Conditions |
Date: |
June 6th 2006 |
Time: |
2pm - 6pm (Lunch provided at 1pm) |
Cost: |
$299 per person |
|
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To reserve your seat please
email trainingusa@stardraw.com, or call Lee Carpenter on 1 866 978 0906
(toll-free)
For other Stardraw training events please follow the link below:
Stardraw Control - New Features & Drivers
Enhanced Client / Server Functionality- Stardraw Control supports
the generation of separate Client and Server executables. This
allows for great flexibility in system deployment and also overcomes
several hurdles faced by control system designers. For example, in
situations where a device is controlled via RS232, or only supports
the opening of one TCP socket at a time, only one controller can
communicate with that device at any one time. However, by using a
Client / Server implementation, the Server application can
communicate directly with the device(s) while Client applications can
communicate with the Server. In this way the Server application can
seamlessly manage and relay control data between,
potentially, hundreds of clients and devices.
Recent enhancements offer very robust client/server operation even
in the face of system failures/restarts. Client applications now
issue a 'heartbeat' once every minute to communicate with the
server, telling it that the client is still alive. This
ensures that the server maintains connection with the client, even
if the UI is inactive for long periods.
If the connection is lost, for example if the server was restarted,
then the client will automatically try to reconnect, either on the
heartbeat or when a call is made to the server, whichever comes
first.
Support of Animated GIFs- The GraphicButton control now
supports animated GIFs as well as standard BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, and
ICO formats. This means that it's easy to include animated
elements in your custom User Interface. Since the Graphic
Button supports different images for each of its states (Default,
Pressed, Hover, Disabled), different animations can be used OnLoad,
OnClick, OnMouseOver etc
New drivers - full support for the following Alcorn
McBride Inc. products has
recently been added to Stardraw control by virtue of specific
drivers that access device functions through Serial and Ethernet
ports
- InterActivator Show Controller
more
- V2+ Show Controller
more
- V4+ Show Controller
more
- V16+ Show Controller
more
- Webster Ethernet Control
more
Stardraw Control is freely available and can be downloaded by
following the link below:
www.stardraw.com Reaches Landmark
March 2006 saw the Stardraw.com website deliver
more than 100GB of data in a single month for the first time.
Marketing Director Rob Robinson explains, "We have seen steady
growth in the distribution of data relating to all Stardraw products
for some time, but it is remarkable that downloads from
www.stardraw.com have almost tripled since this time last year.
Breaking the 100GB/month mark so soon frankly caught us by
surprise - charting the month-on-month trend in 2005 suggested that
we wouldn't reach this point until next year."
Stardraw.com has
delivered all its products exclusively through its website since
January 2002. In addition to the initial installation of long-established design/documentation tools like Stardraw A/V and
Stardraw Lighting 2D, users employ the website to download program
updates and to access libraries of more than 50,000 high-quality
symbols. However, since most Stardraw users only use a
small proportion of the libraries, choosing just the brands they
need from 400+ manufacturer libraries, and since the average symbol
size is less than 20KB, symbols alone cannot explain the massive
growth in website usage. Nor indeed can it be put down
exclusively to increased numbers of users - Stardraw A/V and its
siblings are very efficient applications with an installed total filesize, excluding symbols, of only 17MB or thereabouts.
It is clear the huge growth can, in fact, be linked most closely
to Stardraw.com's new products and the increasing number of OEM implementations. Third party (OEM)
applications based on Stardraw technologies, including RCI Custom's
PanelBuilder, Middle Atlantic Products' RackTools 3.0, and Simply
Reliable Software's SRS Draw, all choose to utilize Stardraw.com's
webservers to deliver program files and data. Meanwhile
Stardraw Control, the new application designed to create custom user
interfaces that can control any hardware device using any protocol,
has been received with great excitement throughout the industry.
With around 4,000 installations, Stardraw Control's
growing userbase enjoys and takes full advantage of the immediacy of
free downloads and seamless web updates to the multi award-winning
application.
Summing up, Robinson commented. "The web stats confirm that our
innovative business models, advanced delivery systems and cutting
edge products are currently in use by nearly 20,000 people worldwide
- and that figure doesn't include the more than 1,000 monthly demo
downloads of our design/documentation applications. We now
fully expect to break 200GB/month well before the end of the year,
meaning 1.7 Terabytes will be downloaded from www.stardraw.com
during 2006, and
that's a great public endorsement."
Stardraw Control - Free Online Training (Introductory)
We are pleased to announce additional dates for the free online
webinar "An Introduction to Stardraw
Control". The free 1 hour
course provides a basic grounding in the
principles and use of Stardraw Control and includes:
- Getting to know the Stardraw Control UI,
- Explanation of views and controls
- Use of products from the Library List
- Creating a customized control user interface
- Catching events and creating actions
- Compiling a control program
The course offers a shortcut for integrators who want to exploit the
power and flexibility of Stardraw Control to produce professional
custom control systems at a fraction of the cost of traditional
methods.
Webinar dates and times, in Greenwich Mean Time, Eastern Standard Time and Pacific Time, are as follows:
Numbers are limited and access to the webinars is strictly
first-come, first-served. To book your place please click on
the Register link above, next to the webinar you wish to attend.
For other Stardraw training events please follow the link below:
User Interfaces Made Easy by Alcorn McBride
 Following
the recent addition of drivers for their products to Stardraw
Control, show control specialist manufacturer Alcorn McBride has
just launched a new area on their website. "User Interfaces Made
Easy" is a ringing testament to the flexibility and ease of use of
Stardraw Control, and shows how Alcorn McBride recommend their
customers create UIs to control any Alcorn McBride product.
 The
area includes executables (.EXE files) of the UIs featured, as well
as downloadable project files that can be loaded into Stardraw
Control, examined, edited and used to create new executables. The
examples shown can both initiate actions and retrieve detailed
status messages from Alcorn McBride show controllers and, to quote
the site, "In less than 10 minutes an entirely
new user interface was created for another project"
For more information on Alcorn McBride and Stardraw Control please follow the links below:
Upcoming Events
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Show: |
PALME |
Venue: |
Dubai, United Arab Emirates |
Dates: |
April 23-25 |
Stand #: |
3G20 |
| |
 |
Show: |
InfoComm |
Venue: |
OCCC, Orlando, FL |
Dates: |
June 7-9 |
Stand #: |
1141 |
| |
 |
Show: |
CEDIA UK |
Venue: |
Excel, London, UK |
Dates: |
June 20-22 |
Stand #: |
H4 |
Symbols Updates
In March the following libraries were updated
in one or more of Stardraw's design/documentation
applications (Stardraw Audio, Stardraw A/V and Stardraw A/V Lite). Click
on a manufacturer name to see full details of that library, or click on a
link at the bottom of the page to update your application
with the latest symbols.
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