Digital Noticeboard

[jedwards2]

Hi folks

 

Does anyone have a recommendation for some software or method we could use to produce the below effect?

 

What hardware we have to run it on: A TV screen mounted to the wall in a vertical orientation and a laptop connected to it (physically inaccessible to users).

 

What we need to do with it: We need something which can basically display a single screen with a list of names of students and who they are to see (all typed in by the user). It needs to be updated by our school office staff, so we need something as simple as possible - nothing advanced or complex, just click in a box, type/edit, submit.

 

How we used to do it: We had a set of ASP pages (view/edit/preview), which were located on a 2003 server, these were written by a member of staff who is no longer working for us. These pages never saved the data anywhere and were always causing IIS to crash (which then lost the data in memory), so I have no desire to find out why they stopped working when we upgraded the servers from 2003 to 2012 R2.

[FN-GM]

Xibo. (Free software)

 

Dump the laptop. Have a small PC connected and push the content from a web interface.

[NB9457]

As said, Xibo.

 

I've found the intel CompuSticks thingys handle Xibo perfectly, best of all they're small, wireless, use barely any power and they're cheap!

 

You can also run it on Android boxes, but this yields a small cost from Xibo, but given you can get a decent box for around £30, that could be a very cheap route too.

[Steve21]

Stick with the laptop and just use Xibo (Server as server, laptop as client)

 

No reason to replace it if it's working

 

Steve

[jedwards2]

We already have a Xibo server but going by what I have seen of the interface, which admittedly is used by another department rather than my own, it is far more complicated than what we were looking for. Is there a cut down basic interface that I'm not aware of?

[dry]

You could do something a bit different than just using the Xibo interface to update it. For example I've set up a PowerPoint presentation that has a macro embedded to export the slide as a jpeg and save it in the htdocs directory on the Xibo server. I've then added a 'webpage' to the Xibo schedule that navigates to the specific file, e.g. http://xiboserverip/filename.jpg

 

Works well- means the Admin staff don't have to touch the Xibo interface as that would really overwhelm them.

[jedwards2]

That sounds much more like the sort of level I'm aiming at. Are you able to supply further details, particularly of said macro?

[FN-GM]

We already have a Xibo server but going by what I have seen of the interface, which admittedly is used by another department rather than my own, it is far more complicated than what we were looking for. Is there a cut down basic interface that I'm not aware of?

 

Compared to other products, Xibo is very basic!

[Joxta]

I've got a similar set up in our canteen displaying the menu each day. The kitchen staff edit a plain text file on a share they have permission to and Xibo (or possibly a php page) displays it nicely on a background. Simple enough?

[dry]

That sounds much more like the sort of level I'm aiming at. Are you able to supply further details, particularly of said macro?

Here's the macro that I've set up. Very basic and I'm sure there's room for improvement:

 

Sub Notice1()

Dim oSl As Slide
Dim lWidthInPixels As Long
Dim lHeightInPixels As Long


lWidthInPixels = 1351
lHeightInPixels = 761


For Each oSl In ActivePresentation.Slides
   oSl.Export "\\ourxiboservername\htdocs\Notice1" & ".jpg", _
       "JPG", _
       lWidthInPixels, _
       lHeightInPixels
       
Next


End Sub

 

The random dimensions are due to me messing up the Xibo template when originally designing it, oops!

[MYK-IT]

Might be able to use these -> Lenovo Stick PC (Black) - (Intel Atom Z3735F 1.33 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 32 GB eMMC, WLAN, Bluetooth, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8.1) [Free Upgrade To Windows 10]: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories Only £49.99

[jedwards2]

Here's the macro that I've set up. Very basic and I'm sure there's room for improvement:

 

Sub Notice1()

Dim oSl As Slide
Dim lWidthInPixels As Long
Dim lHeightInPixels As Long


lWidthInPixels = 1351
lHeightInPixels = 761


For Each oSl In ActivePresentation.Slides
   oSl.Export "\\ourxiboservername\htdocs\Notice1" & ".jpg", _
       "JPG", _
       lWidthInPixels, _
       lHeightInPixels
       
Next


End Sub

 

The random dimensions are due to me messing up the Xibo template when originally designing it, oops!

 

Wow, didn't realise it was so long ago I asked this. I've ended up editing this to my own purposes and using a HTML page to display the resultant image, which we're storing on another server that serves as an internal web server. Thanks.