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Old January 15th, 2010   #3
ericthegeek
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 375
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I strongly feel that IDENTIFY_DEVICE should remain in place until explicitly turned off.

I can think of nothing more frustrating than setting a fixture that needs repair to identify, walking 5 or 10 minutes across a large venue to get to it, only to have identify time out seconds before you get there.

If the controller wishes to implement a way to automatically disable identify, it is free to do so. The advantage of doing it at the controller is that it's easier for the user to setup a timeout that makes sense for their venue, rather than building it into the fixture's firmware.

You could adjust a built-in timeout via a manufacturer specific PID in the fixture, but this will not be widely supported and will result in different behavior from different manufacturers.

I understand the concern about a fixture seeming to be stuck on. In general, I think it's best if the identify behavior is somewhat dynamic, with a strobe, ongoing color change, or fast fade. This way it's clear that nothing is stuck and that the behavior is deliberate.
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