AssignmentDisplay and TimeDisplay are hard-coded

[zeebyezon]

In the MCU Home.zon, the following line have no effect:

    AssignmentDisplay           GlobalModeDisplay
    TimeDisplay                 MCUTimeDisplay

Whether they are present or not, this assignment is still active.
It is not an issue unless you want to disable the time display or the assignment display.

It could be nice to be able to disable them or use them for something else (case where you have 2 MCUs for example).

[FunkybotsEvilTwin]

@zeebyezon , do you have other, specific use-cases in mind? The GlobalModeDisplay thing is what, a two-character 7-segment LED? It really doesn't seem well-suited for communicating a lot of information - so I'm not sure what else makes sense there. If you have ideas though, I'm all ears. Don't take this as me shooting anything down.

And regarding TimeDisplay: what else would it be? I don't think many people have multiple, full-blown, MCUs. But rather keep 1 MCU with XT's. That's the setup I see all the time on the forums.

But if you have alternate ideas for these or want to start a conversation to see if there are some other things that can be done with those two displays, let's discuss on the forums! It's a tough nut to crack.

[zeebyezon]

Yes the GlobalModeDisplay is a 2-character 7-segment LED display. It could be used to display the state of one or several modifiers, not necessarily Global. Or it could be used to display the offset of the first channel, when you bank left/right. Or the page in the track FX menu...

For the time display maybe we could also find examples.
Actually I do have 2 MCUs. The reason for this particular situation is that my first one had a non-working fader, and a couple of non-working segments in the time display. As I was searching for replacement parts, I found out that buying a used MCU was simpler and cheaper. So now I used my old one as an extension :-)
Then I was wondering if I could just switch off the time display, and I looked at the code, and saw that this was just hard-coded. Having the time display hard coded is not a big deal, but having the illusion that you can change it in the zon file is a bit disturbing, don't you think?

[FunkybotsEvilTwin]

Ah...so that's how someone got 2 MCU's! ;)

I'd suggest this: keep thinking about what else to do with each and come up with a proposal. Then post on the forum and get some ideas from the community. Or post there now and see if anyone has a killer idea.

Turning off time display seems like it should be allowed - so I get that. That said, you could probably just create a second MCU folder and remove the TimeDisplay widget from the Surface.txt file and accomplish the same thing without breaking anything.

Global display for Modifiers doesn't work for one reason: I can have Shift+Option+Control+Alt. Not to mention other modifiers like Zoom, Nudge, etc. In a 2-character window, there's no good way to communicate that without being cryptic. I don't say that to discourage the idea that something else can be done with that display, but modifier state probably isn't a good use. Maybe the "Time Dispaly" could be repurposed for Modifier State though as there are a lot more characters. Just a random, probably bad, idea.

[zeebyezon]

"That said, you could probably just create a second MCU folder and remove the TimeDisplay widget from the Surface.txt file" -> Indeed, this is what I did. I had to create a second MCU folder to be able to configure the buttons differently. I have 2 MCUs, so I take advantage of the extra bunch of buttons!

"Global display for Modifiers doesn't work for one reason: I can have Shift+Option+Control+Alt." -> yes of course I get that, I meant just for one or two of them. I did not spend much time thinking about this yet...
Your idea to use the time display for this is not that bad.