SPOTLIGHTMAESTRO

Manual·Chapter 14 of 14

Appendix: Release notes

What changed in each version, newest first. To update, quit Spotlight Maestro from the menu bar icon, open the downloaded disk image and drag the app into Applications, choosing Replace when asked. Open the app again and everything carries on where it left off. Your shows, settings and users are kept.

Version 1.0.4, 17 September 2026

An update shaped by a week of rehearsals: a shorter calling script, a way to move one spot's instruction up or down the plot, colours for scene breaks, new flag options, and PDF exports that print every language and every emoji.

Move one spot's instruction up or down

  • A Move button on the Master plot toolbar shows two small arrows at the right of each spot's cell. They move that spot's information to the cue above or below; the row stays where it is. The arrows are hidden until Move is on, so the plot stays uncluttered.
  • An empty or OFF cue takes the information outright. Moving up into an OFF turns the spot back on there.
  • A cue that already has information for the spot asks whether to Replace it or Merge. Merge fills in the moved fields and leaves the rest as it is.
  • The hole left behind tracks if the spot is still lit coming into it, and reads OFF when the pick up itself moved down. Scene breaks are stepped over. One Undo puts both cues back.

A shorter calling script

  • Anything every called spot shares, level, size, frame, location, note or hard edge, is said once at the end of the line wherever it sat: "all in Waist with frame 1+6 MSP". Before, one spot with a different note forced the size and frame to be read three times.
  • Spots that differ only by character keep their own name and share the rest: "Spot 1 pick up Alexei and spot 2 pick up Tsar, both at 20%".

Scene break colours

  • An arrow at the end of each scene break opens six colours, Default and a hex code, so songs or sections can be told apart from scene names. Admin, Author and Touring Operator can set it; every layout and every PDF paints the same colour. New and imported breaks are always the default green.

Flag Options

  • A new card in Settings, Options. The word for an instant move (a time of 0) can be typed; SNAP by default, BUMP if that is what the show says. It is used on the chips, in the automatic action, in the calling script and on the PDFs.
  • HARD EDGE can show on every cue the beam is hard, or only on the cue where it turns hard.
  • The words for losing the frost, Drop Frost by default, can be changed.
  • A cue that takes the beam to zero never raises the HARD EDGE flag.

PDF exports

  • Every export now embeds a full font, so accented names, Cyrillic, curly quotes and dashes print correctly. Emoji print too, in colour, in line with the words.
  • On the Large Action layout the When line no longer collides with the action icon.

Other improvements

  • Gel codes with a hyphen, L-152 or R-132, are recognised.

Version 1.0.3, 16 September 2026

A small update from the first week of a touring musical's rehearsals. It makes the app feel quicker on wireless devices and keeps every screen honest about what has just been changed.

Faster on wifi

  • Everything the app sends is now compressed. A page load is about a third of the size it was, and each edit sent to the other screens is about a tenth. On a busy theatre wifi that means far fewer packets on the air and far fewer stalls.
  • When you edit a cue, the change appears on your own screen the moment the server accepts it. It no longer waits for the update to come back around the network.
  • A screen that loses its connection to the server notices within about twelve seconds and reconnects itself, instead of sitting on stale information.

Other improvements

  • The Vor or KoalaCue choice in Text on a recording via OSC is remembered between sessions.

Setting up a Windows device on a closed lighting network

  • Give the device its fixed IP address and subnet mask only. Leave the gateway blank and turn the DNS entry off. A DNS entry pointing at a lighting console makes every page load wait for a lookup that never answers.
  • Set the lighting network to Private in Windows. Public mode blocks the replies that let the device find the app at http://spot:7770.

Version 1.0.2, 15 September 2026

A large update: a smarter calling script, better keyboard editing, a second video feed, KoalaCue support and much improved PDF exports.

A smarter calling script

  • Anything every spot in a cue shares, such as level, size, frame or note, is said once at the end of the line instead of being repeated for each spot.
  • A level the spot is already sitting on goes unspoken. A change, or a rise from zero, is always said.
  • Words like Glow written in the Intensity field can now be spoken. Manage the list in Settings, Calling Script, Spoken Intensity Words.
  • Actions written as acronyms keep their capitals: FO in place is no longer read as fo in place.
  • Small wording fixes, such as iris in to Waist instead of iris in in Waist.
  • The Notes Led wording mode and the preset frame option are retired. The one way lines are built now covers both jobs better.

Editing with the keyboard

  • Tab now steps through the plot and accepts pull-down choices. The pull-down menus are drawn by the app: arrows move the highlight, a letter jumps to the first matching option, Tab accepts and moves on, Enter accepts and closes.
  • Growing or shrinking the text with A+ and A- holds the row you are working on in place.
  • Deleting rows no longer moves any other user's window. Each screen scrolls independently.

Two video feeds

  • The RTSP output becomes two independent feeds, so one can carry the Master plot to the console while the other carries the Spot Summary beside it. Each feed has its own settings and status.

Text on a recording via OSC

  • The Vor section becomes Text on a recording via OSC, with a choice of app: Vor, exactly as before, or KoalaCue, which receives the text unwrapped and lays it out itself. Both can run at once, each with its own addresses and multiple outputs.

Much improved PDF exports

  • Every layout's PDF now mirrors its screen: the master plot prints its four columns per spot with action icons, and the operator layouts print in the style the operator uses, including Large Action and Action Intensity.
  • A full show header on every sheet, clearer dividing lines, page numbers, and a Spots per page choice that breaks a wide master plot across sheets in spot order.

Other improvements

  • The console status light is honest: green only when the console is actually connected, amber while trying.
  • The console cue column on the tracking layouts is a fixed width, so every cue's action starts on the same line.
  • When the console goes to cue out, the badge reads EOS Out.
  • Back Up and Restore are renamed Save/Backup Show and Load/Restore Show.
  • Importing from SpotOn-style exports keeps a fading light's colour readable in grey instead of repeating it as a command.

Version 1.0.1, 12 September 2026

This update improves the text output to Vor recordings and the importing of plots from CuePoints, SpotOn and similar exports, and the app now shows its version number.

Send cue text to more than one Vor at once

  • Settings now has an Add another output button in the Vor section. Each extra output has its own address, port and Remove button.
  • Every output receives the same cue text. Use it to feed a Vor on the recording machine and another beside an operator at the same time.
  • The status area at the bottom of the Vor section shows one line for each output, with its own message count. A problem on one output is visible even when the others are working.

Broadcast addresses now work

  • You can set an output such as 10.101.255.255 to reach every listening machine on that network range.
  • A failed send no longer stops later sends. Before this fix, one bad address could silence the output until the app was restarted.
  • When you change an address, its message count starts again from zero, so the numbers always describe the address shown.

CuePoints import understands more spot names

  • The CuePoints importer recognises followspot types named Spot 1, Followspot 2, FS 3 or F/S 1. Before, only names containing the word Spot were accepted.

Importing from SpotOn and similar exports

  • Percentage signs are removed from imported intensity levels, so 30% arrives as 30.
  • OFF entries are read the way a plot reads them. An OFF that follows a live level is the real out and stays in the plot at 0. An OFF that follows zero marks the spot as off for that cue, and keeps doing so until a real level appears.
  • A character that only repeats the row above is cleared on import, so only a change of character becomes a command. This keeps the app tracking correctly through plots that write the character on every row.
  • When a spot fades up after being off, the character on that row is always kept, so tracking starts fresh at the pick up.
  • Scene text written on every row becomes proper scene breaks. The banner shows only where the scene changes.

The app shows its version

  • The menu bar menu shows the version at the bottom.
  • The Settings screen shows it at the foot of every tab.

Version 1.0.0, 2 September 2026

The first release.

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