Tecside · for Sequentia

Scena Designer

Draw the control panel a room will be run from, on a Mac. Push it to the tablets over the local network. Then close the laptop and leave the building — the panel stays.

Download for macOS

Version 1.0.0 · Apple silicon · 90 MB
Signed and notarised by Tecside · macOS 11 Big Sur or later

SHA-256  93610bff4e22380c4d1cd574262c95d5423c87c13d801296ec377e07a4d4c76f

What it is

Scena Designer is the design-time half of a show-control installation. It is where an integrator lays out the page an operator will actually touch: buttons, vertical and horizontal faders, toggles, status readouts, a live cue list, a colour wheel, logos and background images, placed on a canvas at the exact coordinates they will appear on the glass.

It is not a show editor and it does not run a show. The timelines, cues and sequences live on the Sequentia controller. This app decides what the operator's screen looks like and what each control fires — and nothing else.

It reads the box, read-only

Point it at a Sequentia controller and it reads the cue lists, layers and sequences that are actually on it. Every field that names something in the show then becomes a picker instead of a text box, so a control cannot be pointed at a cue list that does not exist. Nothing is ever written back to the box.

It names devices once

“My devices…” holds the OSC, UDP and TCP targets a room talks to — the projector, the desk, the matrix — each with a name, an address and a port. Every control that fires at one names the device, not the address. When the projector moves, you change it in one place.

It finds the tablets itself

Tablets running Scena sweep the network for this app and dial in on their own. The Devices list shows each one by the name it was given, with its model, platform, address and MAC — and Identify flashes one amber so you know which tablet in the rack you are looking at.

It pairs by identity, not address

The layout names its controller by serial number, with the last known address as a hint. When the box takes a new DHCP lease, the tablets find it again by serial and carry on. An address that changes overnight costs nobody a site visit.

Every publish is kept

The last fifty publishes are stored automatically. Restoring one puts that version live on every tablet — and the restore is recorded the same way, so it can be undone in turn.

Then the Mac leaves

Each tablet caches the panel it was given. Once a layout is published, this app can be closed and the Mac can go home; the tablets keep their panel and talk to the controller on their own, indefinitely.

How a job goes

  1. Scan the network. Scena Designer finds the Sequentia controllers on every subnet the Mac is on, with their serial, name and address. Pick the one this room uses.
  2. Draw the page. Drag elements onto the canvas. Set what each one fires from the show's own cue lists and layers, or from the OSC, UDP, TCP and HTTP actions if it is talking to somebody else's gear.
  3. Save & publish. Every tablet that has dialled in gets the layout immediately — or only the ones you select.
  4. Walk the room. Press things. Fix the ones that are in the wrong place. Publish again; it is instant.
  5. Leave. The tablets keep the panel. Come back in a year, open the app on the same network, and the same layout is still there to edit.
It works with no controller at all

A layout does not have to name a Sequentia box. If the room is one panel, one console and one projector, draw the devices in “My devices…”, point the controls at them, and the tablet sends the OSC, UDP, TCP and HTTP itself. The same designer, the same panel, no box in the rack.

Requirements

Operating systemmacOS 11 Big Sur or later, on Apple silicon (M1 or newer). There is no Intel build.
NetworkThe Mac and the tablets on the same local network. The app serves on port 9091 while it is open. No internet connection is needed at any point.
TabletsScena on iOS or Android. One app for phones and tablets; a panel drawn once is right on both.
ControllerA Sequentia show controller, when the room has one. Optional — see above.
LicenceFree. It is the design tool for equipment you already own; there is nothing to activate and no account to make.

Installing it

Download the disk image, open it, and drag Scena Designer into Applications. The app is signed with Tecside's Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so it opens on the first double-click with no right-click-Open ritual and no Gatekeeper warning.

Configuration lives in ~/Library/Application Support/scena-designer — the config, the projects, the publish history and the images. Backing up that folder backs up every room you have ever drawn.

The rest of the family

Sequentia is the controller: a fanless Linux box that runs a show 24/7 in a client's building — Art-Net and sACN lighting, DMX512, audio, timelines and cues, OSC, UDP, TCP and HTTP, dry contacts and timecode. Scena is the tablet app this one publishes to. Specula is the dashboard that watches a fleet of boxes across many buildings.