RiseVision

An issue that has been brought to our attention is people utilizing Google’s multiple sign on capability sometimes log into our digital signage software with the wrong user account. We have added some functionality so that users can select the account they want to log in as. This quick video tutorial shows how when you are logged into your two different accounts using multiple sign on and you then access the Rise Vision platform in a separate tab, you will be asked which account you want to log in as.

I hope everyone finds that information useful, and if you have any other questions, feel free to post them in our forum.

Thanks!

We’ve already talked about how to customize the layout for the Google Spreadsheet Gadget, but what we haven’t covered yet is how to scroll that custom layout. So, let’s tie up that loose end right now.

We’ll use the same HTML markup for creating a menu for a digital signage Display as in the previous post (I’ve shortened it to only show the relevant parts):

<div id="menu">
  <div class="repeat menus">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

To support scrolling, we need to add an additional HTML element with an ID of scrollContainer. This element is a wrapper for all of the content that should be scrolled. Since we want the entire menu to be scrollable, we wrap it around the menu element:

<div id="scrollContainer">
  <div id="menu">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

Next, we need to add some sort of indicator for the scrolling functionality to know what content to scroll when Scroll By is set to Page. This is done by assigning a class of page to the appropriate element:

<div id="scrollContainer">
  <div id="menu" class="page">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

There is an important point to note when scrolling by page, and that is that the height of the page element must be greater than the height of scrollContainer. Otherwise it is assumed that all of the content is already visible and scrolling is not necessary. This can be achieved with some simple CSS to tell the scrollContainer to not automatically resize to fit its content, but rather to stay the same size as the Placeholder:

#scrollContainer {
  height: 100%;
}

There’s one final step, and that’s to add a similar indicator when scrolling by row. This is achieved by assigning a class of item to the appropriate element:

<div id="scrollContainer">
  <div id="menu" class="page">
    <div class="repeat item menus">
      ...
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

That’s pretty much it. You now have a menu that scrolls according to the Scroll By setting!

Using a jQuery plugin called jqFloat.js, you can create floating effects like the one’s in this Presentation. It works by utilizing jQuery’s animate function to animate elements to different positions indefinitely, giving them the illusion that they’re floating. This demo is the same one provided on the plugin’s web site, and it highlights some interesting ways in which the plugin can be used.

If you’d like to experiment with some of your own ideas, you can download the plugin from here. Don’t forget to start by including it in your digital signage Presentation:

<script src="path/to/jqfloat.js"></script>

From there, add the HTML that you would like to appear floated. If that HTML element had an ID of balloon, for example, you would add the following jQuery code to then “float” it:

$('#balloon').jqFloat();

You can configure the floating object by specifying its maximum horizontal floating area (width), maximum vertical floating area (height), maximum floating speed (speed), or its distance from the bottom (minHeight):

$('#balloon').jqFloat({
  width:5,
  height:30,
  speed:1500,
  minHeight:300
});

You can also start or stop the animation (like the balloon in the demo Presentation) by passing play or stop:

$('#balloon').jFloat('play');
$('#balloon').jFloat('stop');

The plugin takes care of the rest! Pretty neat, huh?

When using the Google Spreadsheet Gadget, you will see there is an option to change the Heading font, color and size.  Recently a user in our forum was having some issues in getting the header to show, so today’s post is about how to show or hide the header from your Spreadsheet using our digital signage solution.

First you will need to get the query data source URL to put into the Google Spreadsheet Gadget. Notice that the URL ends with an =0 or 1. If you want the Spreadsheet to show the very top column as the header, change the value to 1. If you want no header, change it to 0. Pretty simple stuff.

Another thing to keep in mind is that any of the font options you apply to your header in the actual Spreadsheet will not be reflected in the Gadget in your Presentation. If you want the header to have a different font, size or color, select those options in the Google Spreadsheet Gadget’s “Heading Font” section.

I hope that helps, let us know if you have any questions in the forum.

Thanks!

In a previous post, we discussed how to request some information about the digital signage Display that a Gadget is running on. In a similar way, you can also get information about the Company, including the Company ID and social connection data. Currently, the only supported social connection is Foursquare.

Requesting Information about a Company

In your Gadget, make the following RPC call to request the Company ID:

gadgets.rpc.call("", "rsparam_get", null, id, "companyId");

where id is the ID of the Gadget (in case you’ve forgotten how to retrieve the Gadget’s ID, read this blog post).

To retrieve social connection data, use this instead:

gadgets.rpc.call("", "rsparam_get", null, id, "social:foursquare");

Handling the Response

The Viewer will send back a response via RPC as well. To receive this response your Gadget needs to register an RPC call:

gadgets.rpc.register("rsparam_set_" + id, handler);

where handler is the name of a callback function to which the Viewer will send the response.

The callback function takes 2 parameters, name and value:

function handler(name, value) {
  //Add code to handle the response.
}

For a Company ID request, name is companyId and value is the ID of the Company.

For a social connection request, name is social:foursquare and value is a JSON string of the format

{"network":"foursquare","access":"access_token", 
  "companyLocation":"location_token"}

where:

• network is the name of a social network.
• access is the OAuth access token for that social network associated with the Display.
• companyLocation is the location token for that social network associated with the Display.

Company Information for a Digital Signage Display

Get information about a Company from within a Gadget.