The offline editing software is a terrific way to advance program parts of show, edit an existing show file or just get familiar with a lighting control system. Offline editing tools are available for all ETC consoles and EOS Family Offline can be used to create and edit EOS, Gio, Ion and Element show files. EOS Family Offline can be run on any PC using the Windows® XP or Windows 7 operating systems or an Intel-based Macintosh using OS X. Separate downloads are available for the two different platforms. EOS Family Offline provides an operating environment and graphic displays identical to the console itself. Provided an option to open the Offline software in EOS family mode, which provides all of the tools and functions available for EOS, Gio and Ion or in Element mode, providing the Element feature set. The complete set of alphanumeric-keyboard shortcuts and virtual controls for all front panel commands and operations are exactly the same as those used for the EOS Family Client. EOS Family Offline software can also be used with an EOS family system device (EOS, Gio, Ion, EOS RPU, Ion RPU or Element) as a way to remotely view system data. In this mode, it can only Mirror another device. To use as a remote programming station, a client dongle is required (see EOS Family Client). EOS Family Offline can also communicate with visualization programs. Communication with the visualizer is provided over an Ethernet network and can use either the ETCNet2 or Net3 protocols. It's important to note that output from EOS Family Offline is done with an infrequent refresh rate; as such, a simulated fade on Offline to a visualizer will appear with visible steps, which would not occur in the real world. Because working quickly is important to you – and it can be hard to remember all of those keyboard shortcuts, recommend the use of PI Engineering's X-Keys® panel with EOS Family Offline software. X-Keys is a panel of user-definable keys. We have provided a file that defines the X-Keys Professional 58-key panel with the EOS hotkey shortcuts most used in remote programming and editing. This is available on the product download pages.