garageCube

I'm currently experimenting with some led strips and wondering what the difference is between dmx fixture and dmx line.
I expected that the dmx line was similar to video lines where you can use the animation but don't see any option for that.

The only difference is the way you manipulate it: normal fixtures acts like a rectangle you can edit using the 4 corners handles and the rotation handle, fixture lines act like a line you can edit with two handles on the extremities + thickness. So when you want to place a line from a point A to point B on a media it's much easier with a fixture line.
Ideally you should use a fixture line for all hardware that is a line (Nx1 pixels).
The arrow shows you the direction of the fixture (for instance if you fixture definition is 10x1 RGB pixels with pixel mapping: pixel 1-channel 1, pixel 2-channel 4, pixel 3-channel 7... the arrow will let you know the orientation of the virtual fixture)