Special characters & LCD panel controls

Hello, I am trying to display accented characters on LCD panel controls, but they are always replaced with an interrogation point. Example: ‘Flûte à cheminée’ becomes 'Fl?te ? chemin?e’. Is it a limitation coming from Hauptwerk? Does Hauptwerk refuse all the accentuated characters sent to LCD panel controls? Or do I miss a setting?

Hello, I am trying to display accented characters on LCD panel controls, but they are always replaced with an interrogation point. Example: ‘Flûte à cheminée’ becomes 'Fl?te ? chemin?e’. Is it a limitation coming from Hauptwerk? Does Hauptwerk refuse all the accentuated characters sent to LCD panel controls? Or do I miss a setting?

Luc,

I believe this is a function of the characters available to display on the LCD panel. I looked through the character set of another such panel and although there were 256 characters none were accented. I also did not see any accented characters used in the Hauptwerk explanation of the LCD panel so it could be that Hauptwerk does not send them because the LCD panel does not display them. YMMV.

Thomas

Luc and Thomas,

It's not a limitation of Hauptwerk.
See page 221 of the manual. There is defined:
Bytes 7-38: the 32 ASCII (8-bit) bytes for the text to display.

Because 8 bits Hauptwerk can display all the characters, mentioned on https://www.ascii-code.com/, if the LCD accepts and displays 8 bits data (all type of characters are available).

I have seen specs of some LCD units which only can display 7 bits ASCII code: Bytes 7-38: the 32 ASCII (7-bit) bytes. In the table on https://www.ascii-code.com/ only the characters from 00000000 till 01111111 (BIN) can be displayed. In that case bit 8 is always 0.
Possible limitation can be the character set, available in the LCD unit.

So, look in de specs of your LCD unit for this.

Actually, I think the the problem is that MIDI sysex messages don't allow data with bit 8 set.
Possibly, the HW manual is wrong, the reference to 8-bit is contradicted by the preceding paragraph.

Nick

Hello All,

In my case, the problem does not come from the LCD unit, because the text is sent to a touch screen (see here: https://www.orgelhuis.be/images/collection/mix/intrada/intrada003L.jpg. I am now wondering if the responsible is Hauptwerk, the console builder, or the Midi Sysex messages limitation.

Actually it doesn't matter to what kind of device it's send to, as long as it's done by means of a MIDI SysEx message, then Nick's remark is still valid: a SysEx message's data-bytes have their most-significant bit set to 0; hence 7-bits ASCII effectively.
itsabird

7-bit ascii does have a variety of legitimate ways to do this however.

For example, the control character 'SO' can be used to indicate a change of character set, while the control character 'SI' can be used to revert to the original character set.

The issue is that this is definitely a matter for the LCD panel manufacturers to implement and document if they wanted to. Personally, I would think this would be a good idea since it would 'internationalise' their products for rather little effort/expense.

Nick

Hello Nick,

If I understand correctly what you explain, the responsible for my problem is the console builder, since my LCD control panels are virtual (see below).



This would be only a question of programming. Am I right?

Hello Luc,

I'm afraid I'm not able to offer an opinion on where the responsibility lies for your not being able to do what you want to, or on how it might be made possible. I know nothing at all about virtual LCD panels. You would probably need to discuss this with your builder.

Nick

You’re right Nick. I am waiting for this answer from Milan Digital Audio.

While we await a response, it seems clear that Hauptwerk will send up to 32 7-bit values which the user can specify. That would normally be ASCII 7-bit values, not Extended ASCII with 8 bits.

The 7-bit restriction is also a MIDI System Exclusive message restriction where the highest bit is reserved for special uses like indicating the start and end of the Sysex message.

The display device can be programmed to display ASCII values or any other values or do something entirely different than creating a display. Most LCDs can have user customized character sets, but Hauptwerk doesn't do that. The creator of an on-screen virtual LCD would have programming control to change the character fonts to something more suitable.

The console builder is certainly not responsible either unless they agreed to reproduce these characters as the buyer intended. Perhaps this is on the list of features for the next HW version?

You’re right Nick. I am waiting for this answer from Milan Digital Audio.

Perhaps I am getting a bit confused about what a 'virtual' LCD panel actually is, but so far as I know, HW can already send anything that is allowed by the MIDI protocol. It is up to the recipient, real or virtual, of those MIDI messages to make sense of the messages and display what the user expects to see.

I suppose MDA could, if minded to, make some suggestion as to how alternative character sets could be requested, but it would always be the responsibility of the display providers, hardware or software, to implement it.

Nick

After some thought, and googling, I'm beginning to wonder if ludu is using something like this: https://www.mixtuur.com/en/home-organs/v-touch/. If so I don't think it's anything to do with either LCD panels (as I understand the term) or MIDI.

Nick

Hello Nick,
I have bought a variant of this model: https://www.mixtuur.com/en/home-organs/intrada/.
Each virtual tab corresponds to a specific LCD number (see the manual, page 160). So I can create my own stop and coupler switches for aech organ.

Hello Nick,
I have bought a variant of this model: https://www.mixtuur.com/en/home-organs/intrada/.
Each virtual tab corresponds to a specific LCD number (see the manual, page 160). So I can create my own stop and coupler switches for aech organ.

Hi ludu,

So your LCD panels are not 2 line 16 character LCDs but are actually touch screen displays.

That would seem to indicate that the display is a graphic and what is displayed is up to the person who did the custom ODF for the sample set on the intrada console. This would seem to be a Mixtuur question.

OR if the displays are custom touch screen displays that are operated through MIDI then what is displayed is up to the manufacturer of this special display. This would also seem to be a Mixtuur question.

So what does Mixtuur say about it? Inquiring minds want to know

Thomas