Beginner Topic used frequently in Bottango workflows.
Hardware Status Tab
The hardware status tab is a view where you can see the connection and live/not live status of all the hardware in your project.
For the rest of this section, we’ll be working in the top “Hardware” tab of the app. If you haven’t already navigated there, do so.
The first view you’ll see in the Hardware view is the status of all your hardware. Here’s what a blank project will look like:
To start, you should only have two entities in this list:
- Master: The master control state of your project overall.
- Default Driver: Every project needs at least one hardware driver. The default driver was created when you created the project.
As well, each entry in the status list has a small colored circle to the left of it, and a live/not live toggle. We don’t need to change anything in this specific menu yet, but let’s still go over what each piece means.
As you add more motors and drivers to your project, you’ll see this menu fill out and provide a convenient all in one spot to enable and disable specific hardware.
Master Live
Section titled “Master Live”The topmost item in the status tab is a view of Master Live. This is a second view of the same functionality that is always visible in the top right of the screen, but behaves the same. You also have an option to set if Master should be live or not live when you first launch the project.
Hardware Status Indicators
Section titled “Hardware Status Indicators”Most places hardware is shown throughout Bottango, a status indicator is also shown. That status indicator can be either red, yellow, or green.
- A red indicator generally means that Bottango was unable to connect to that piece of hardware, or the hardware is set not live.
- A yellow indicator generally means that Bottango could communicate with the hardware, but that something isn’t quite right. For example, the wrong version of Bottango is running on the hardware driver, or a stepper motor still needs to be synchronized.
- A green indicator means that everything is good to go, and communication between Bottango and this hardware is working.
As an example, here you can see the hardware status on the following items:
- Master is live, so it’s green.
- The default hardware driver created for the project is live and connected to Bottango firmware, so it’s also green.
- The servo on pin 5 associated with the default hardware driver is set to not live, so it’s red.
Hardware Status Indicators in the Top Menu
Section titled “Hardware Status Indicators in the Top Menu”In the top menu, on the Hardware view button, you’ll see a collected total status of all hardware in your project. The total number of hardware items in each given state (red, yellow, or green) is shown.
If all hardware in the project are the same status, the count is hidden:
As well, you can mouse over the status indicator to see a quick tooltip of hardware status without having to visit the hardware status menu:
Advanced Status Options
Section titled “Advanced Status Options”For some advanced features, like if your driver supports live toggling between connection to a computer or exported animations, you’ll be given options to make changes in this menu. As well, at the bottom of the menu are options to enable advanced functionality like the REST API or SMPTE timecode. We’ll cover those options in more detail in their related sections of this documentation.