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Getting started#

Prebuilt binaries for Linux, Windows and OS X can be found on the release page.

Supported platforms#

Open Stage Control is a desktop server application. It runs on all platforms supported by Electron or Node (in headless mode only, see Running without Electron). Any device running a compatible browser can connect to the server :

Android / iOS native app ?

There is no native mobile application. The server's url can be added to the home screen to launch the interface in fullscreen.

Options#

Below are the available command-line options. Note that when running without any command-line switch (ie from a file browser), a launcher window will spawn to help setting them.

Preferences are stored in the user's home folder in a file named .open-stage-control (hidden under Linux / macOS)

 Option  Description
-s --send  default targets for all widgets (ip:port / domain:port / midi:port_name pairs)
-l --load  session file to load
--state  state file to load (osc messages will be sent, unless there are other clients connected)
-b --blank  load a blank session and start the editor
-c --custom-module  custom module file to load (custom options can be passed after the filename)
-p --port  http port of the server (default to 8080)
-o --osc-port  osc input port (default to --port)
--tcp-port  tcp server input port
--tcp-targets  tcp servers to connect to (ip:port pairs), does not susbtitute for --send
-m --midi  midi router settings
-d --debug  log received osc messages in the console
-n --no-gui  disable default gui
-g --gui-only  app server's url. If true, local port (--port) is used
-t --theme  theme name or path (mutliple values allowed) see theming
-e --examples  list examples instead of recent sessions
--url-options  url options (opt=value pairs)
--disable-vsync  disable gui's vertical synchronization
--disable-gpu  disable hardware acceleration
--force-gpu  ignore chrome's gpu blacklist
--read-only  disable session editing and session history changes
--remote-saving  disable remote session saving for hosts that don\'t match the regular expresion
--remote-root  set remote file browsing root folder
--instance-name  used to differenciate multiple instances in a zeroconf network
--fullscreen  launch in fullscreen mode (only affects the default gui, F11 to exit)

Command-line only :

Option  Description
-h --help  print available options
-v --version   print version number
--inspect   enable node/electron inspector (visit chrome://inspect with chromium to access DevTools)

Examples

open-stage-control --send 127.0.0.1:5555 127.0.0.1:6666 --port 7777

This will create an app listening on port 7777 for synchronization messages, and sending its widgets state changes to ports 5555 and 6666.

open-stage-control --no-gui --load path/to/session.js --port 9999

This will create a headless app available through http on port 9999 with session.js loaded automatically.

What about HTTPS ?

Security is out of the app's scope. If you are concerned about safety, using a private - protected - network should be enough.

Run from sources#

Running the app from the sources slightly differs from using built binaries : we'll build and launch the app with npm (node package manager).

1. Requirements

2. Download sources

git clone https://github.com/jean-emmanuel/open-stage-control
cd open-stage-control/
# uncomment next line if you want the latest release
# instead of the current development version
# git checkout $(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`)
npm install
npm run build

Updating from sources

git pull
npm install
npm run build

3. Run !

npm start [ -- options]

A double hyphen (--) is used here to tell npm that the options are to be passed to the app.

Build from sources#

1. Requirements

2. Download sources & build package

git clone https://github.com/jean-emmanuel/open-stage-control
cd open-stage-control/
# uncomment next line if you want the latest release
# instead of the current development version
# git checkout $(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`)

# TARGET_PLATFORM can be linux, win32 (windows) or darwin (os x)
export PLATFORM=TARGET_PLATFORM
# TARGET_ARCH can be ia32, x64, armv7l or arm64
export ARCH=TARGET_ARCH


npm install

# run this instead if ARCH is armv7l
# npm install --arch=armv7l


npm run build

npm run package

# Do one of the following if you want a deb package for debian/ubuntu
npm run deb32
npm run deb64
npm run debarm

This will build the app in dist/open-stage-control-PLATFORM-ARCH.

Building the app for windows from a linux system requires wine to be installed.*

Running in a headless context#

Electron, Open Stage Control's engine, is based on chromium and can't run out of the box without a display server. However, using a virtual framebuffer does the trick. Detailed instructions can be found in Electron's documentation.

In short: install xvfb and prepend your command with xvfb-run: 

xvfb-run open-stage-control -n

Running without Electron#

It is possible to run the server in headless mode without Electron using node (v6 or higher) :

node /path/to/packaged/open-stage-control/resources/app/ -n
node /path/to/sources/open-stage-control/app/ -n

Or using the precompilled binaries for node:

node /path/to/packaged/open-stage-control-node/ -n

To build the app for node only from sources:

# git clone, etc...

npm install

npm run build

npm run package-node

Running in a terminal on Windows#

Windows users launching the app from a terminal need to add a double dash (--) before their options:

open-stage-control.exe -- --port 5555 [...]

# when running from sources
npm start -- -- [options]