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Dynamic URL in Data Feed

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Peter Brauner
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Hello,

 

I wonder if it is possible to alter the URL of a data feeds with variables. I would like to have a network of Brightsign units to get RSS/XML from different URLs. Or more specifically a single ID in the URL string to be set based on the ID of the BS unit.

Example: www.example.com/rss.php?id=X1G35F001599 where the string after the id= is the serial of my unit. This variable is of course different for each unit but this will let me drive different content to my players with only one project file in Bright Author.

 

Hope you understand my question.

Cheers!

Peter Brauner

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6 comments

  • 0
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    Alex

    Hi,

    Here's one way to build such a presentation in BrightAuthor:

    1. Go to File - Presentation Properties - Variables, add a system variable, enter a serial number of one of your  units.

    2. Under Media Library - other, select LiveText and drop multiple LiveText widgets to playlist. You need 1 LiveText widget per unit. In LiveText specify text information (rss feed) you wish to show on the screen.

    3. Under Media Library - events, select Timeout event (or other interactive event) and drag it onto the initial state in your playlist.

    4. Click Advanced, Set Conditional Targets, Add Conditional Target.

    You can use the following logic in your presentation:

    If variable = serial number1, then play LiveText1;

    If variable = serial number2, then play LiveText2;

    ...

    If variable = serial numberN, then play LiveTextN.

    If you have 100 units, then you will need to create 100 LiveText objects and 100 conditional targets.

    I'm attaching a sample project to this post. It was created in BrightAuthor 3.7.0.39.

  • 0
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    Peter Brauner

    Thanks for your reply.

    I should have written that I want to use video that is dynamically downloaded. And for that, as I understand it, the LiveText item is not suitable. Correct me if Im wrong but LiveText cannot show video, only text and images. Correct?

     

    Are there a way to do this by writing a plugin? We are digging hard in the documentation about writing our own plugins and scripts but documentation on how the workflow for writing those lacks. The object and scripts references are excellent but we haven't got our head around how to actually work with those and how to expose them to the other objects in the presentation.

     

    Cheers!

  • 0
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    Peter Brauner

    One more thought. Could the new features in 3.8 solve this

    From the new feature list:

    • Ability to populate Media Lists or Play Files from data feeds

    I will send a note to the support mail and request the alpha version. I'll give it a try when I got my hands on it.

  • 0
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    GD

    Hya RenderMonkey,

    I was looking for the same, and first tests are succesful.
    i found the format in the user guide, page 120 and just tried :-))

    In file presentation-properties i made a user variable named playerid 
    Set this variable to Default: 0 and the type to SystemVariable: serial-number.
    Then under Data Feeds and HTML Sites, just add the variable to url, like:
    http||example.com/myrssfeed.php?id=$$playerid$$
    The serial number comes thru to my php scripts.

    When you put a mRSS feed on stage with the same user variable,
    brightauthor complains that it can't validate a user variable in the feed,
    but it still works. (strange enough, the validate button does work in presentation properties)

    (Firmware: 4.7.112  BrightAuthor: 3.7.0.37)

  • 0
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    Peter Brauner

    Great thanks GD! Good stuff!

  • 0
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    Michael Beaumont

    Has anyone got this to work recently?

    Trying to do almost the exact same thing, and it doesn't seem to work.

    I have a variable called "serialnumber" that is set as a SystemVariable / Serial Number

    Then in the Data Feed URL I have tried both the following with no success:

    http://www.example.com/$$serialnumber$$.xml
    http://www.example.com/$$serialnumber$$/variables.xml

    If I change the Data Feed URL to be static, it works, so i'm confident the XML is good.

    Any ideas?

    (Firmware: 8.0.146 BrightAuthor: 4.7.2.18)

    Many Thanks!

     

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