The Lighting Controller

Support,
Win 7 and 8.1, dual box hubs, SX ver 7.1.42

So this weekend I was running my show with a Box Hub, my touchscreens, keyboard, and wing console. And suddenly my fader for red snapped off. Not a big deal I can just repatch the Red to another fader, and then update my output patch to the new fader. But my problem was this:

I had to do it mid-show, mid-song. Again it is easy enough to do but when the patch page is up I can do nothing else with the software. What a pain.

Now there are plenty of times I will have Live or Editor up with the fixtures on that I want and then go to the Patch page. This is useful when I am patching a house theatre plot because as I put in the patch numbers (correctly of course) the fixture patched comes on.

So my question is this:

Why can't the patch panel and Live/Editor be accessible simultaneously? Why do I have to get out of the patch page completely just to change something in Live/Editor?

My initial problem is rare, but patching a house light plot is my bread and butter. I would use the simultaneous Patch and Live/Editor together frequently.

This window has been programmed like this: all changes are considered after pressing the button "Apply" in the window "Preferences".
Changing that by "implement every change in real time" would need to redo the code of this window from scratch.

It is real time in that if I put up a light(s) I want in Live or Editor and then go to the file-preferences-midi/dmx patch and input the data of the patch the light pops up in real time. But if I need to make any changes to Editor/Live I have to close out the DMX/Midi patch and Preferences window.

Now don't get me wrong I still use the Patch window as is for inputing long strings of lightin addresses, but would it be possible to do something like this:

In Editor when I right click a channel a context menu comes up, what if you instituted a choice to patch right at the source. I could say put it in the fixtures are with a right click of the fixture itself, but Editor has the highest priority in lighting playback. so it's override capacity and real time behaviour makes it seemingly suited for this, but I am not a coder you would have to tell me if this suggestion is feasible.

Sorry but we are not able to work on that, some weeks/months before introducing V8.
We could check that, after V8 becomes stable.

So a wait until 8. I thought as much. And of course you have only made me more curious about 8.