Filemaker Sinage

[haitianfella]

Good afternoon all im using fm 9 advanced.
I'm trying to create a form of digital sinage.
i want it to include: static text, scrolling text/CHANGING TEXT

what I've done so far is created 4 fields & 4 layouts

fields = static text, message 1 message 2, message 3

layouts = message 1, message 2, message 3, admin page

The admin page displays all the fields, and i have and each message # has its own layout that includes the static text field.
the script i have goes to each layout one after another looping.
what i want to be able to do is use the admin page on one PC while the message screens are running.
what i have is pretty primitive. please help

 

[JeanW]

I don't know the term sinage.

Signage, on the contrary, does ring a bell.

 

[haitianfella]

Pardon my French you're right Signage any suggestions.

 

[JeanW]

Apart that the word is the same in French I have absolutely no clue about what you are doing, made, say or want to do, except probably trying to use the wrong tool.

 

[haitianfella]

I'm trying to create something similar to what this company is doing

http://www.strandvision.com

but i want to do it in filemaker

 

[JeanW]

As I said, the wrong tool, but anyway.

You can do something similar, similar, not same, with a constant looping script.
It will stop your actions that you want to do in the application as long as the script is running.
So you need a plugin to trigger.

If you stay native in FileMaker, separate the engine from the data.
Let the script run in one file and put the data in an other file.
Related the two en let the script run in the signage file.
Meanwhile you can still work in the data file.

But according to me you-re using the wrong tool, not for the data, but for showing data.

 

[mjstrand]

haitianfella, I'm the guy who wrote the

http://www.StrandVision.com

site. I am using a series of dedicated linux web servers running php and mysql to do the backend work with flash doing the client displaying. I've used FileMaker about 15 years ago, so I'm sure it has changed a lot since then. It used to be a database only. If it can draw pages nicely now, then it could work, but based on what it used to be, I agree with JeanW about the wrong tool for the display.

I started out drawing information using html and the scrolling that it had. Since we work with thousands of customers with information that they customize 24 hours a day with tens of thousands of screen and hardware configurations, that turned out to be a nightmare. That is why we went with Flash. There may be better products out there, but it scales the text and images nicely. You can even do multiple events so that pages can be preloaded from your database - however it is extremely complex to get it working well. We've been developing our system over 5 years with hundreds of thousands of lines of code that combine 5 programming languages together, so there is a little bit of complexity to it. That said, developing your own system with very specific uses would be nowhere near that complex.

If you are moving forward with your development and want more info on some of the hurdles that we went through to develop this, let me know. I'd be happy to share the non-patented info.

Best of luck in your project.

 

[haitianfella]

Wow this is a small world Mr. Strand. I admire your strand vision solution. My organization has even demo'd the product and since then the thought of creating something similar to this in filemaker has been with me. So far I've developed a minor solution that we display in our main lobby. but like you said it's not as complex. I'll probably incorporate flash into the solution once i learn it. but what i like most about the strandvision solution is the amount of control the user has.

 

[mjstrand]

Oops, forgot to say that my name is Mike (Mr. Strand always seems waayy to formal...).

Yes, the Internet has made the world very small - which is one way that our Internet based digital signage system does well. I'm glad that I saw the post and am able to visit with you.

Your solution seems like a very good one for your organization. So are you displaying it using html or with the FileMaker program itself? We have also had people using PowerPoint to display things, but of course that is very difficult to update in this type of situation (must shut it down and copy new files - so almost have to be at the display computer to do the update). Maybe there is a way to use your FileMaker database to create something that PowerPoint could display? Another option could be to create .jpg images using FileMaker, and use a screen blanker system to show images in a directory (slide show).

If you move forward with flash development, let me know - I might be able to help. The biggest thing that I had to get beyond was the threaded model that they use. I am used to calling a function to load a file, and when it came back, it was loaded. If you already do Windows threaded development, you wont have that lesson.

Have a great week!

 

[haitianfella]

Hello Mike, Ralph here.
yes the solution is 100% Filemaker. i do plan on using power point slides or some pics in the future. The solution all text right now and has a lot of room for growth.