Publishing
All data within the world of LUCA lives inside of the instance of Master Patch that the user is running.
Users of remote viewer applications such as Stage Viewer are able to connect to Master Patch and retrieve that data on demand.
However, if the Master Patch operator is in the process of making changes and updates to data, but it is not yet complete then it would be undesirable for the remote viewer users to be able to retrieve that data, as it may lead to confusion or a misunderstanding.
To help with this situation, Master Patch has a system known as Publishing, which allows the Master Patch operator to push data to the network only when they are ready.
Publishing can be done in two different ways, depending on what the user wants to publish to the network.
- Act scoped publish
- Event scoped publish
Each of these publishes can also be influenced by what is known as an Event Scope Change.
Band Scoped Publish
In the bottom right of the Act Page the 'Publish Act' button can be found. When the user uses this button to Publish, it performs what is known as a Act Scope Publish.
In an act scope publish only the changes for the act that is in view will be published to the network.
That is to say if the user navigated to the act page of an act called 'The Greatest Rockers', made some changes and then published, only the data for 'The Greatest Rockers' would be published to the network. All other acts that had also had their data updated since the last publish would not publish their data to the network.
In this way the Master Patch operator can have multiple acts being in an edited state at once, but only push the updates for a specific act they desire.
Event Scoped Publish
When the user is on the Event Overview or the Act Overview page the 'Publish All' button will become visible in the bottom right of the screen.
This button will perform an Event Scoped Publish.
The Event Scoped Publish will publish all changes to the event since the last publish and will include all data for all acts that have been edited since the last publish.
This is useful for when the Master Patch operator has made multiple edits, potentially across multiple acts on multiple days, and they want to push all those changes at once to the network, for example at the start of a new day.
Event Scope Changes
Both an Act Scoped Publish and an Event Scoped Publish can be affected by what is known as an Event Scope Change.
An Event Scope change happens when some data relating to the core project has changed.
Examples of an Event Scope Change are:
- Adding, removing or reordering days in the event.
- Adding, removing, or reordering of acts in the event.
- Renaming acts.
- Changing the line system.
When an Event Scope Change has happened, Master Patch will show this by showing '*Publish Act' or '*Publish All' on the publish button.
When the Master Patch operator makes a publish to the network when there is an Event Scope Change present, remote viewer users will receive a different kind of alert known as an Event Scope Warning which will show up in Red, instead of the usual Orange.
This type of publish contains with it a notification to the remote viewer application that there is now a chance that the remote viewer could be looking at data which no longer exists. For example, if an Act has been removed but the remote viewer user was looking at that exact act, then they are now looking at incorrect information, as that act is no longer part of the event.
The remote viewer application takes care of this by requesting refreshed data to Master Patch when they receive notification of an Event Scope Change.
If the Act or day still exists then the remote viewer application will continue unaffected.
If the remote viewer application is indeed now looking at incorrect information it will either force the user back to selecting another day/act (with the changes now affected) or if the act still exists but with different data (such as a day was renamed name) then the remote viewer will request updated data and re-render accordingly.
Essentially, if an Event Scope Change does happen, both the user of Master Patch and the remote Viewer Application will be made aware and the remote applications will do all the work to ensure that the user is still reading correct up to date information.
It is not possible for a device which is actively connected to the network to be looking at incorrect information, viewer applications will always show the latest information available from Master Patch