Show desktop after song?

[CO&Play]

At the end of a song I just want my desktop photo to be used - how do I make that happen? Basically I'm trying to get rid of the Who's singing next screen....as that has caused some "rotation" issues with singers.

I looked around on the Wiki site and I couldn't locate it.

[dave]

in prefs->General, turn on "pause between tracks", and "Hide video window when paused" and "auto full screen"
in prefs->advanced, turn OFF "show rotation at end of song"

can i ask: how does the "who's up next" screen cause "rotation issues" with singers?

[CO&Play]

Dave - as always thank you so much for your quick response and great program!

My complete newbie - no computer skills whatsoever - issue was not understanding the very simple preferences area.....

To answer your question - due to the singers being on a rotation - sometimes I'll get new singers towards the bottom of the rotation and their names will "appear" to jump the line in front of singers who have been waiting for awhile. Obviously not a big deal....but when you add alcohol and impatience to the mix - it can cause some drama.....

Again thank you so much!!

[dave]

ah! i see. interesting.

what about an option to add the new singer to the slot BEFORE the current singer, instead of at the end of the rotation?

[DeusExMachina]

If you recall, this was one of two potential alternate rotation schemes I laid out. Both, however, involved first setting a particular singer as the "last singer" in the rotation. Before that, singers get added to the end of the rotation as usual. Any singer added after that is "folded in" using one of the two alternate algorithms.
1) New singers get added in to the slot right before the current singer.
2) New singers get added in interleaved with the current rotation. I.e.:
First pass:
1) A
2) B
3) C
4) D
5) E <- last singer

goes to:
1) A
2) F
3) B
4) G
5) C
6) H
7) D
I
9) E

The problem arises in the first when multiple singers sign in during the same song
In the second, it arises when the number of new singers added in a rotation is > (the number of singers in the current rotation-1)
I solve this by hand by leaving the singers where they are at the end of the rotation, after the last singer, until we reach that singer, then stop the rotation and restart it at the beginning, then dragging the last singer back to the end.

1) A
2) F
3) B
4) G
5) C
6) H
7) D
I
9) E <-play rotation to here, then restart at 1
10) J
11) K
12) L

goes to:
1) A <-play through rot 1
1A) J <-play through rot 2
2) F <-play through rot 1
2a) K <-play through rot 2
3) B <-play through rot 1
3a) L <-play through rot 2
4) G
5) C
6) H
7) D
I
9) E
Doing this algorithmically would requeri cacheing the singers during the first pass, until you get to singer 4, at which point they are folded in behind. I do this in my head.
Another easier, but somewhat less fair, scheme, is to just reassign the last singer label to Singer L.

The next rotation could theoretically be:
O O N O O N O O N O O N (O=old, N=new; i.e., interleave every two singers. I don't do it this way, but have heard some do.)

A third algorithm merely involves calculating the time or the curent rotation, and adding new singers such that they wait the same time.

[dave]

wow, can you do that in my head too? that would be awesome.

[DeusExMachina]

Now you know why not having D&D kills me. THEN I have to do it ALL in my head, including keeping the whole rotation dynamically updated! PITA!!!!

[DeusExMachina]

Oh, FYI, the easy procedure is to drag a block of new singers to the first available slot, ⌘-click the first one, unselecting it, drag the rest to the next slot, ⌘-click the new first one, repeat.

[Karanight]

I just drag new singers to where I want them depending on how many singers I have and how many new singers come at once. One thing I try to do is If I've got six singers from one table, I split them up between other singers so I'm not calling all the singers from that table one after another. This solves the problem of other singers complaining that "your only getting your mates up from that table" (And I haven't got any mates)

[DeusExMachina]

Since I am 100% server, no paper slips ever, I could never do that, since I have no idea where people are sitting!

[Karanight]

I agree that with singers I don't know it is difficult but the next week when they turn up I then know their names so I then split them up. I don't always get to do that but where I can I do. Basically I know most of the singer and I don't normally wait for them to ask, I just put them up to sing. The only ones I don't put up to sing like that are those I know need lubricating first, I wait till they've had a few pint's and then as soon as their'e ready I make sure their the next one up to sing

[CO&Play]

ah! i see. interesting.

what about an option to add the new singer to the slot BEFORE the current singer, instead of at the end of the rotation?

Dave this sounds like a great option.

[DeusExMachina]

The main problem with this is when a large number of singers happen to sign up while a single person is singing. This creates a situation where that person gets "penalized", having to wait inordinately long to sing again.
And it is not like they won't notice! :/

[dave]

i hope to make it a bit smarter eventually.

[DeusExMachina]

One easy way algorithmically to accomplish the interleaving I mentioned above is, after marking a particular singer as "last singer" in the rotation, to add new singers on the end as now, but when you get to within X (NUMBER OF SLOTS IN THE ROTATION SCREEN-1) the Rotation screen does not see them, but instead shows the next singer, followed by the last singer, followed by the first singer, etc.. After the last singer sings, the rotation skips to the first singer, and the singers after the last singer get shuffled into the interleave. Any singers past the last singer can either get added to the end of the rotation (and the last one becomes the new last singer) or added at the end of the rotation, with additional new singers added after that, but since last singer does not change, the next time the last singer is reached, they get folded in to the beginning of the rotation a second time.
Alternately as each singer sings, any singers after the "last singer" can be folded into the slots between the current singer and the last interleaved singer. (This is how I currently do it in my head. (As the singer marked last approaches, the rotation screen should update as above.))
The host has to do something along those lines by hand, or the first singers, the ones who came early, keep getting pushed farther and farther back as singers trickle in.