Manual

Firing & Transport

#GO

Press the space bar or click GO to fire the armed cue. The large GO button in the bottom transport bar shows the armed cue's number and name right on the button ("GO ▸ 12 · Thunder"), so you can confirm what will fire without looking away from the trigger. The playhead advances to the next cue automatically.

#Transport controls

• Pause / Resume — pauses running audio and video; press again to resume.
• Stop — stops the current cue gracefully.
• ↑ / ↓ chevrons — move the armed cue selection without firing.
• PANIC (also the Escape key) — fades every playing cue out over the panic fade window (3 seconds by default — change it in Show Settings ▸ Audio), then fully stops and blanks all video outputs. While the fade runs, the PANIC button fills solid, shows a live countdown, and relabels to HARD STOP — press it again mid-fade for an immediate hard stop. Set the fade to 0 to make every press an immediate hard stop.
• Press Return with a cue selected to rename it from the keyboard.

#Auto-follow and auto-continue

Each cue can automatically trigger the next one. Set this with the Continue column:

• GO — the next cue waits for you to press GO (the default).
• Auto-follow — when this cue finishes, the next cue fires immediately.
• Auto-continue — when this cue starts, the next cue fires after the post-wait.

Chain a whole sequence that runs on a single GO by using auto-follow on each cue.

#Pre-Roll (delay before a cue starts)

Pre-Roll holds a cue armed for a set time AFTER it is triggered, then starts it. Enter it in the PRE-ROLL column of the cue list (or double-click the cell). It applies to every cue type and to every way of triggering — GO, GOTO, and auto-follow.

Example: give an Audio cue a 10-second Pre-Roll. When you press GO the cue arms and a countdown runs; 10 seconds later the audio starts (and honours its own Fade In). A video cue behaves the same way — GO, wait the Pre-Roll, then the video plays. Use it to line up a cue with an off-stage count, a scene change, or a house-lights fade without having to press GO at the exact moment.

Pre-Roll adds ON TOP of a Time trigger's pre-wait if you set both.

#Post Time (delay before the next cue auto-follows)

Post Time is a gap INSERTED AFTER this cue finishes, before the next cue runs. It only matters when the NEXT cue is set to auto-follow — its Trigger is Follow, Immediate, or Time. If the next cue is a manual GO, Post Time has no effect (you're firing it yourself). Enter it in the POST TIME column.

Example: a music sting is Q1 and a lighting look is Q2 set to Follow. Put a Post Time of 3s on Q1 — when the sting ends, CueForge2 waits 3 seconds and then fires Q2. It's the "hold this beat before continuing" control for an automatic chain. If Q2's own Trigger is Time with its own Trig Time, the two delays add together (Post Time of Q1 + Trig Time of Q2).

#GOTO and LOAD

• GOTO keypad — the slide-in panel at the right edge of the cue list. Type a cue number and press Enter to jump the playhead there. Press GO after loading to fire immediately.
• GOTO cue type — when fired, jumps the playhead to the target and fires it.
• LOAD cue type — arms the target cue without firing it.

#Load to Time

Stage the selected cue to start partway through, then fire it with GO — for picking up a rehearsal from the middle of a long track or a group's timeline.

1. Select the cue (audio, video, group, or playlist).
2. On the GOTO keypad, use LOAD TIME and type the time (e.g. 1:30) — the cue arms with that start offset. GOTO TIME does the same and fires immediately.
3. Press GO — the cue starts at the loaded time. Audio starts exactly at the offset; video seeks as the player attaches; a group fires and reconciles its whole timeline to that point (subcues that would already be playing start mid-way, earlier ones are done); a playlist treats the offset as a position in its track sequence — earlier tracks are skipped and playback starts mid-way through the containing track (with shuffle on, the offset applies to the shuffled order).

The staged offset applies once. GOing a different cue, re-selecting, or stopping the show discards it. In a session, the offset travels to connected peers so PRIMARY and BACKUP fire from the same position.

#Show Mode

Press ⌘L to enter Show Mode. Editing is disabled, protecting the cue list from accidental changes during a live show. Press ⌘L again to exit.