Key Articles
Stardraw Design 7 Beta is Live
 Announced
at the beginning of this month, the Stardraw Design 7 Beta program —
our first ever public beta — went live on July 10th and we are
delighted that more than 600 people have already downloaded the beta
version of our seventh generation system design software.
Offering a holistic approach to system design and documentation, Stardraw Design 7 is a modular
package which will enable integrators to custom configure the software to suit their particular
specifications and budget.
Using an entirely new codebase, Stardraw Design 7 employs a project- and product-centric database
architecture which is accessible via tried and trusted task-oriented drawing environments such as
'Block Schematics' and 'Rack Layouts' as well as a new, grid-based product selector. A key advantage
of this approach is that each environment is simply a 'view' of the central project database that
contains ALL of the data relating to your project, right down to the last nut and bolt. The Linkage
feature means that changes made in any one drawing or environment will be automatically applied to
all other drawings and views in the project. Furthermore, a brand new feature in Design 7 is the
Symbols Palette which enables you to see the products that are not being used in the current drawing.
It's an extremely useful feature for keeping track of your project and for making sure that you haven't
overlooked anything when creating your system drawings.
Other new and improved features include the Project Dashboard, a master view of all the views and
details of the project enabling instant access to any drawing, view or report; a multi-tab interface
so that all drawings are accessible at the same time, with each drawing on its own tab; fully integrated
project reporting; compatibility with the latest versions of AutoCAD (R12 - 2010) and Visio as well
as a built-in PDF-generator. There is also a Product Wizard — a step up from the Symbol Wizard in
previous versions — which allows you to create product records with all associated symbols and data.
Overall, Stardraw Design 7 offers an even slicker, smoother drawing interface and a structure that's
designed to handle the challenges of integrated system design. It's a multi-generational leap
forward.
"We're very proud of this new application; our most powerful and streamlined off-the-shelf
design/documentation package yet," commented Stardraw.com CEO, David Snipp. "The codebase, although
new to the product family, isn't new to us: it's been used by well over 25,000 customers of our OEM
applications. Nevertheless, in order to be completely sure that our product responds fully to market
requirements, we've initiated a public beta phase in order to give our customers the opportunity to
come back to us with suggestions, observations etc. Customer feedback is the number one tool for us
to improve our products and our service. We not only welcome feedback, we actively encourage it — hence
the beta program. We've had a tremendous response so far to the public beta and it's not too late to
register, so please visit our website and take part!"
The Stardraw Design 7 Beta can be downloaded now and feedback is
invited through the
dedicated
Beta Forum. Follow the link below to download Stardraw Design 7
and participate in the public test phase now.
Stardraw Design 7 Beta Webinars
To support
the Stardraw Design 7 Beta program we are hosting 2 webinars this month
to act as an introduction to this brand new application and cover new features and concepts.
Recommended for all those interested in or already participating in the public Beta.
Control Arts becomes Certified Programmer
 We
are delighted to welcome Andrew Straatveit of Control Arts LLC as the latest addition to the
community of Stardraw Control Certified Programmers.
Certified Programmers are independent companies and individuals
who have proven skills and aptitude in delivering Stardraw Control
solutions. Services offered include:
- UI Graphic design
- UI Programming
- C# Scripting
- Driver development in the following protocols: IR, RS-232,
TCP/IP, DMX, EtherSound, Cobranet
- SDC Programmer Training
- On-Site Test / Deployment
- Hardware Integration / Installation
Control Arts are headquartered in Pasadena, Maryland, USA and are
system integration and control specialists covering all aspects of audio,
video and lighting control as well as emerging 'green building' applications.
Stardraw Control Pings the Changes
 Newly
added to Stardraw Control's generic control toolset is the
'Ping' driver: a utility to check IP device
connection. When used in a project it exposes responses from devices
to the common Ping command so that you
can call Actions based on the connection state of devices, or a
change in the connection state, for instance to show an alert
in your User Interface if connection to a device is lost.
New Drivers for Stardraw Control
Since the last newsletter, the following advanced drivers
have been added to the Stardraw Control
product family:
Manufacturer |
Model |
Bose |
ESP-88 |
Cue |
PEC25 |
Generic Control |
Ping |
Weigl Works |
WEMC-1 |
These, as with all published drivers, will be automatically added to your
Stardraw Control product library when you choose to accept Library Updates on
startup. To make your own product requests, please visit our Drivers Request
forum by following the link below.
Upcoming Events
 |
Show: |
CEDIA |
Venue: |
ICC, Indianapolis, IN, USA |
Dates: |
September 7-10 |
Booth: |
627 |
|
 |
Show: |
InfoComm MEA |
Venue: |
Dubai IECC, Dubai, UAE |
Dates: |
October 9-13 |
Booth: |
E7-46 |
Symbols Updates
In June the following libraries were updated
in one or more of Stardraw's design/documentation
applications (Stardraw Audio 2007, Stardraw AV 2007 and Stardraw AV Lite 2007). Click
on a manufacturer name to see full details of that library.
To update your Offline Libraries, select Options | Synchronize Offline Libraries in
your Stardraw application.
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