New post
0

Display a clock sometimes but not all the time.

Avatar
Jeff Moore
None
Follow

I have a BrightSign Presentation that includes 5 images that make up a schedule of classes and room assignments and an introductory welcome image. I would like to figure out a way to display a clock on all of the pages but the first page. 

Each page is a static image and is updated daily and published to the player via local networking.

I have played around with the clock zone and it seems like there is no way to hide that zone within a single BrightSign presentation. I can not layer the clock with a transparent image because that does not work with images, only videos. Any idea on how to make this work?

The only thing I can figure out is to have a presentation with just the first slide and a single zone and have it time-out to a "Switch Presentation" command which switches to a new presentation with both an image zone and a clock zone. I think have that presentation time out on the last slide to another "Switch Presentation" command that switches back to the single image presentation.

While this works it is a little clunky during the switch and the screen goes black for a moment. I would like this to be much smoother but so far I have not hand any luck.


Date Votes

9 comments

  • 0
    Avatar
    Allen H. Porter

    There is a show/hide zone command on the Advanced tab of any object.  I have not tried it with a time zone before.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Jeff Moore

    I don't think I can do anything like that on a Clock Zone.

    This a portrait mode presentation and I can get it to work if I export a video out from PowerPoint but PowerPoint exports portrait mode video at 602 x 1080 which looks awful on the player. I may just have to create a video in some other program. Not a great solution for a user though that wants to update graphics regularly.

  • 0
    Avatar
    JRB Technical

    You said you could not make the clock layer (I assume) transparent. Can you flip things around the other way, put the clock layer on the bottom, and put all the other content on a layer on top, with a image with a transparent area when you want the clock to show?

    I have done this with some other things, (several layers/zones underneath, but they wanted a full screen video to play every 10 minutes, so I used a full screen transparent image with a timer then the video). I haven't tried that with a clock zone though, so I can't say for sure it that will work. I would think that you you should be able to have a loop of images on the top, and use PNG images with a transparency for where the clock is when you want the clock to show.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Jeff Moore

    JRB Technical - That was the very first thing I thought of but the clock zone is treated like an images zone when it comes to layering and you can not layer one image zone behind another. They exist on the same plane. If I could put an image zone in front of a clock zone then it would work perfectly.

    What I am looking at doing is having a video for the assets that do not include a clock. A video CAN be in front of a clock zone. Tested it yesterday and it does work but what a PITA. 

  • 0
    Avatar
    Dustin Vietzke

    Could this clock plugin work? It's HTML based.

    https://github.com/tshaffer/DigitalClockPlugin

    I am completely new to BrightSign/BrightScript and just exploring what's out there for it right now, so apologies if this is completely off.

  • 0
    Avatar
    JRB Technical

    I just did a test with another HTML clock I have done for a few people, and same issue - you can get video to play on top of HTML, but images do not seem to work, the html image zone overrides the video or images zone on top.

    I really wish the layering was better with BrightAuthor. Give me layer numbers 1-10, 1 is on top, 10 is on bottom, everything follows suit regardless of image or video or ticker or clock. Not this ambiguity that it is now, where some things play on top and some things don't regardless of if you say front or back for the graphics plane z position.

  • 0
    Avatar
    Jeff Moore

    Yeah, the layering could use a lot of work. Don't know if it is a limitation of the video processing or something else but it could be a lot better. Ultimately though BrightAuthor as a piece of software is mess. 

  • 0
    Avatar
    Dustin Vietzke

    Could the entire layout be done in HTML so you have more control of what's visible and not have to worry about how BrightAuthor handles z-index?

  • 0
    Avatar
    Jeff Moore

    Dustin - Probably. That is a little above what we do. I have tried to contact a couple of content companies but no one has really been interested in working with us.

Please sign in to leave a comment.