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 1.0.8, 19 October 2026

Video feed

  • On the Spot Summary feed, and in the text sent to Vor and KoalaCue, a cue that takes a spot out now shows as written while the console is on it: FL/0, the character, the time. Before, it went straight to a blank out panel.
  • The console video feed can no longer show a sign-in screen. Its own sign-in lasts for years, and if it is ever rejected the page reloads itself instead of signing out. The log says why if it happens.

Quitting and backing up

  • Quit from the menu bar with a backup no longer hangs: the backup runs in the background and the quit question follows when the file is written.
  • Every backup dialog now says where the file will go before you press Back Up: the Mac's own save panel on the host, a chooser in a browser that offers one, or the Downloads folder in Safari.
  • Quitting from a browser on the host hands the backup to the Mac's own save panel, the same as the menu bar, and waits for it to finish before asking to quit.

Editing

  • The Advanced operations, and an Undo that reaches back to one, redraw the plot in place instead of reloading the whole page. You stay signed in, Settings stays open, Follow and Tracking are untouched.
  • A cell edit shows in the plot the moment the cell closes. If it cannot be saved, the old value comes back and a notice says so, instead of the edit looking saved while it quietly failed.
  • While a cell is open, nothing can overwrite what you are typing. If someone else changes that cell meanwhile, the cell is outlined in amber and your version wins when you finish.

Hardening

  • A failing request answers with an error and the server carries on, where before one bad request could stop the app for every device.
  • A multi-step Undo that fails no longer duplicates the undo history.
  • Only image files can be uploaded as photos, graphics or the logo, and served graphics can never run as a page.
  • Change licence on the sign-in screen accepts requests only from the app's own page on the host.
  • The video feed's own sign-in is handed to the video component privately, no longer on its command line where a process list on the host could show it.

Logins

  • Restoring an older backup and relaunching no longer resets the licensed login's password to the one that came with the licence. A password changed in the app stays changed.

Find

  • Find is a small panel that floats over the plot and drags by its title bar, so a found cue is never hidden beneath it. It finds only, stepping through matches with Enter and Shift Enter, until you tick Replace.

Spot colours

  • Each spot can have its own colour on the Master plot and its PDF, set in Settings, Spots. Strong on working cues, faint on tracked ones, nothing on OFF. Operator layouts and the calling script stay as they were.

Scene breaks

  • Scene break types are now yours to define in Settings, Options: any colour from the colour picker or the palette, with a name you type or one taken from the colour itself. The colour menu on the plot lists them. Change a type's colour and every break of that colour on the plot changes with it.
  • A scene break banner can be clicked to select it, so + Scene Break and Insert Cue place a new row directly above or below it. Stacked act and scene headings can now be built in any order.
  • A row you have just clicked stays the target for Insert Cue and + Scene Break for two minutes, even while the console keeps firing cues.

Spot Summary

  • With Spot usage on, a heading with nothing of its own beneath it gets no usage line, so a stacked act title no longer says a spot has no cues.
  • Name a scene break colour Act and those breaks count each spot's cues for the whole act, scene by scene up to the next Act break.
  • In the By type view, each type heading carries a small badge with the number of breaks of that type.

Version 1.0.7, 9 October 2026

Copy and paste one spot's instruction

  • With Move on, every spot shows copy and paste buttons beside the arrows. Copy a spot's whole instruction and paste it onto any spot at any cue. Empty, OFF and tracking cells take it outright; a cell with its own instruction asks Replace or Merge. Cmd C and Cmd V do the same on a clicked cell.

Licence and followspots

  • The sign-in screen names the production that is open. On the host machine it also offers Change licence, which opens another production without quitting the app.
  • On a production licence the number of followspots is no longer fixed. Set any count up to the number the licence covers, and the operator layouts offer only those. Data for spots above the count is kept, not deleted, and comes back when the count goes up.

Version 1.0.6, 28 September 2026

Frost

  • A production can have internal frost, frost in colour frames, or both. Tick every frame that carries a frost in Settings, Spots, Frost.
  • HARD EDGE shows only when every frost is out of the beam. The internal chip reads INTERNAL FROST OUT when a frost frame still softens the beam.
  • With more than one frost, losing one is named: Drop Internal Frost, Drop Frost Frame 3, or Drop All Frosts.

Remote control followspots

  • An amber Intensity fader down bar under the notes when a CONSOLE cue takes an operator-run spot to zero. On the PDFs and in the calling script. A tick box in Settings, Spots turns it off.

Scene breaks and the Spot Summary

  • Each scene break colour can be named, Song or Dance for example, in Settings, Options, Scene break types. The colour menu shows the names and the calling script prints the type on each banner.
  • The Spot Summary lists scenes In order or By type, and a Spot usage tick box adds how many cues each spot has in every scene, and which scenes a spot has none in.

Backup and restore, one tap from anywhere

  • The production's name at the top left of every layout now opens a menu: Save/Backup Show, Load/Restore Show and, on a Studio licence, Manage shows. The same commands stay in Settings, Connections and on the application icon.
  • The Custom entry has left the size list. A size typed through Other still joins the list; old cues that used Custom keep their text.

Settings

  • A new Lists tab holds the production's vocabulary: actions, colour frame combinations, sizes, characters and action graphics. Options keeps the settings that change how the app behaves, and is short again.

Other improvements

  • The Spot Summary video feed shows the presence dot before each spot, so the console operator can see who is connected.
  • On TCP the console indicator goes red as soon as the console closes the link, instead of staying green until the listener is restarted.
  • The safety copy written before a restore is an .smshow file too.

Version 1.0.5, 22 September 2026

Shaped by feedback from a touring musical on the road: everyone can see who is connected, Follow and Resync behave, the arrow keys read ahead without fighting the console, PDFs come in a dark version for screens, and backups get their own file type.

Who is connected

  • A small dot before each spot name on the Master plot, the Calling Script and the Touring Call shows whether that spot's operator has a screen open. Green means a screen reported in within the last few seconds, red means none did. A touring operator counts for their own spot, or for whichever spot's layout they are looking at.

PDFs

  • The Master plot PDF now prints what the screen shows: the same spot order, and excluded spots left out.
  • Every PDF button asks whether you want a Light version for printing or a Dark version for screens. Dark keeps the blue cue numbers, green scene bars and red flags and inverts the rest.

Follow, Tracking and Resync

  • Follow is its own button on the Master toolbar, next to Tracking. Press it to drive every screen, press it again to stop. Tracking is a plain On/Off switch again.
  • When Follow ends, each screen goes back to the Tracking state it had before Follow started, instead of being left on Tracking Off.
  • A quick run of arrow presses in Follow no longer makes the other screens jitter backwards and forwards. Each step carries a sequence number and late ones are dropped.
  • The Stream Deck Follow key now toggles: press to start, press again to stop.
  • Resync reloads only the screen that pressed it. It comes back in Tracking On at the console's cue, and the other screens keep their own state.

Reading ahead

  • The up and down arrow keys move the blue selection, with Tracking On or Off. The gold console cue stays where the console is, and the next fired cue brings the plot back. While Follow is driving, the arrows still step the show.
  • A cue that is running no longer drags the screen back every time the console repeats its position. A Go To Cue, or a cue fired again from the start, is still followed.
  • Inserting a cue below the last visible row nudges the plot just enough to show it, instead of jumping.

Backups

  • Backup files now end in .smshow, named after the show and the time, for example Anastasia 2026-09-22 1830.smshow. Double-clicking one opens Spotlight Maestro and offers to restore it, with the same checks and warnings as Restore in the menu. Backups from earlier versions ending in .db still restore.

Other improvements

  • The quit warning counts tabs or devices, and no longer counts the video feed as a viewer.

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.

Windows

  • The Windows version is now a signed installer, Spotlight Maestro Setup. Windows opens it without a warning, it needs no administrator password, and installing a newer version over the old one keeps every show.

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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