dhicks

Okay: so my system is a Python script, running on a Windows server. I sync files from a folder on Google Drive using rclone, my script goes through the files (Excel / CSV files for data, HTML files for templates) and puts the data into the appropriate template file, then copies the result to a small, local web server where it is picked up by the display screens. Our display screens are managed ChromeOS devices, so my script finishes with a reboot of those devices to get them to update. Does that sound like something you will be able to host yourself? A local server in your school building, or a remote server would work. Do you use Google Drive or Microsoft 365 for shared file storage, or something else? How do you want to go about triggering the script? It's a shell script, it runs from the command line, I have it sat on my own web server that handles running this sort of thing, with appropriate access control, so the kitchen staff can log in and hit "run" if they make a change to the menu, otherwise it updates overnight. Our setup in the kitchen is two 65" portrait-mode 4K TVs, each driven by a managed ChromeOS device, with a separate menu on each (one for mains, one for everything else). You might have a different setup, so we'll need to change the templates a bit - just basic HTML files, the sort of thing you can get AI to produce quite easily.

We have the exact same menu schedual as you - 3 weeks of a rotating menu, mostly the same with a few tweaks here and there. I've created a system where the kitchen team can input items into a spreadsheet (Google Sheets in our case, with appropriate access handled by Google Drive, although on the backend it's handled as an Excel / CSV file) and that gets converted into a self-contained web page (also a PowerPoint file, and PDF output should also be possible). A bit of tweaking would probably be needed to fit it to your exact situation, but should be do-able.

Thanks, that very useful - once I know the names for the things I'm looking for a bit of Googling should start turning up some answers. I could, potentially, look at making my own DMX replay / recall unit, as it seems that some of those USB / DMX bridges can read DMX data as well as write - I wouldn't then have to create a user interface to set up the lights, I'd just be recording a table of values set by a controller.

That does, actually, sound quite simple - a little fiddly to set up, but probably less time-consuming than getting QLC+ installed and set up.

Okay: so a simple four-button selector would be nice and easy for our users to use. I'm assuming the control panel has to be programmed in some way - is it its own self-contained system of some sort, or would we need to purchase some other equipment to be able to set it up? Any idea on rough pricing? I can find a mini PC and touch screen to install QLC+ on, the main cost involved there is going to be my time spent configuring it.

Indeed, but I think we'll manage okay - we don't have that many "big" productions in that hall, and not that many lights, so I suspect if I can do a good selection of lighting setups that'll be all that's needed in a lot of cases. For context, the whole interior of the hall is clad in grade-2 listed wooden paneling, with all the stage and lighting being a "portable" setup that can be removed if needed, anything we add / do is, in theory, temporary.

I'm thinking to simply unplug the fixed console for productions. We have a Zero 88 FLX S24 DMX desk, bigger productions can be done on that, day-to-day just-turn-the-lights-on stuff can be done on a separate fixed touch screen. The ability for that fixed console device to act as a Bluetooth input for people bringing phones / laptops to connect to the sound system would be nice, too, which by the looks of things QLC+ might be able to handle as well.

Okay: I have the application running (using Wine) inside a containerised Linux instance, accessible via a web-based remote desktop interface behind a reverse proxy (Pangolin) handling authentication. Each user that logs in gets their own isolated desktop instance running just ExamPad+, no other applications or general desktop functionality are available (or even installed!). As you suggested, using the options to turn off full-screen seems to make the application more stable - I just need to tweak the setup a bit to check the application window resizes properly when someone resizes the browser window. What are your plans for the software - is this something you plan to sell for exam purposes to schools and so on?

Thanks, that's good to know. Yes, I think our users would understand a nice touch-screen interface better than something with physical buttons these days.

Ah - yes, that sounds like it might be the best option. I can get QLC+ installed on a device (and I see it supports Raspberry Pi, which is handy) plugged in in the hall and set it up so I (and other staff) can remote into it, that should give us the option of using it in-place or on a different machine.

Hello All, In our main school hall we have a pretty basic lighting setup, with a dozen or so RGB LED lights up on a scaffold framework around a stage at one end of the hall. We have a lighting control desk for productions, but for day-to-day operations (morning assemblies, etc) it would be nice to have a basic touch panel or similar so people could select a particular lighting configuration without having to plug in and use the control board. What are the available options? I'm guessing somebody does a nice all-in-one device, I guess it's just a case of how affordable the hardware / software is? Writing my own looks like a realistic option here - a quick bit of Googling suggests an FTDI-based USB-to-DMX bridge (£20), which should be easily enough programmable in Go, that combined with a Raspberry Pi and a touch screen (£150-ish?) would sort the hardware. However, it would still take time / effort to create a user interface, so I would prefer an existing solution if possible.

You probably want something with more of a dedicated design for using from a ceiling mount. Sorry, I can't remember the model we bought a while back, but a quick search for "4K PTZ Camera" brings up this (£230): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vunvooker-Conference-Tracking-Streaming-Education/dp/B0DB4LTWHW We've used something similar in the past (although not that make / model, so I can't vouch for the exact features).

I get the impression it's designed more for businesses, with the expectation devices will be one-to-one (or, indeed, multiple-devices-per-user), rather than a school's multiple-users-per-device.

We generally use the athletics track / stadium at Battersea Park. It has a somewhat rickety PA system itself, but we've often taken along our own speakers. The main problem we've found is with the range of the wireless mics our staff want to use - they expect a wireless mic to work wherever they happen to be stood in the stadium. If you're using a wired mic plugged in to a mixer, a classic SM-58 or similar, you can get an in-line pre-amp that will take power from the phantom power (possibly) provided by your mixer (£55, cheaper options might be available): https://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/TritonAudio-FetHead-In-Line-Preamp/3R9H Check your mixer (if you're using one) provides phantom power - if not, or you're not using one, a small one might make a good purchase. We have one of these (£45) in our main hall: https://www.amazon.co.uk/VONYX-VMM100-Interface-Bluetooth-Receiver/dp/B0BLD332WM/ref=sr_1_5

Starlink now seems to start from £39 per month, which might be an option for a backup connection. I think that price only includes a relativly small amount of data per month, but you can add more on a flexible basis, so if you need need an emergency connection for a few days while your main connectino was down it might be an affordable option.

I've found Debian's auto-update facility to be reliable and easy to set up, if you haven't got that set up already. It doesn't really answer your question, but at least you don't have to worry if your servers are up-to-date, which is one less thing.

We do as well - we found the phones were a little quiet for noisy classrooms, so we've now added some PoE speakers as well. Both the phones and the speakers simply listen for network broadcast traffic on a specific broadcast address and play it if / when it appears. Therefore, all you need is for a doorbell that transmits a short "Bing-Bong!" sound to the network when its button is pressed. If there isn't a ready-made solution available it's the kind of thing a microcontroller with a button attached should be able to handle, so you could make your own. Our 3CX system is set to drop calls when announcements are made (because they are assumed to be emergencies), you might want a separate broadcast channel, maybe only picked up by selected devices, for the doorbell, as dropping phone calls every time the doorbell is pressed could get annoying.

I've got the Macbook plugged into our large screen. MacOS seems be recognizing it's in "clamshall mode" properly with HDMI, USB keyboard / mouse connection and power all connected through the AV connector, so when I close the Macbook's lid with all that connected it stays on and displays on the big screen - nice. The headphone connection also seems to work just fine, too. About the only thing I'm having issues with is my genuine antique 40-year-old IBM Model M keyboard, which MacOS is having trouble regonising beyond "generic keyboard". It seems that something is getting lost between the keyboard itself and the PS/2-to-USB-to-KVM-to-AV connection.

By the looks of things, Snipe-IT uses a Ubuntu-based Llinux) image (version 24), so creating a Linux VM in Hyper-V and then running Docker inside that should work.

I'm mildly surprised someone's not already tried, I suspect there's a project out there somwhere we're just not aware of. I've not used Quill before, but I have used Ace, which I've found to be very easy to embed into a web page. I'd want to aim for something that worked directly in the browser using local storage but synced to a central server, with a defined mechansim of what happens if a pupil device conks out part-way through an exam and you have to reboot or get a fresh device. I was thinking (hence my question above about running ExamPad+ on Linux) you could run ExamPad+ on a remote desktop from a pupil device in kiosk mode, which would allow continuity if a rebooted / new device was needed. I'm not sure how it handles accesibility features, audio transcription in particular, which can be fiddly over remote desktop, so something I need to test.

If your staff are putting videos in specific folders (either on a local file server or on CloudStorage), you could have a script look at those folders and produce compressed versions of the video files, probably using ffmpeg (a very widely-used tool for video manipulation). It should be quite a simple script, the sort of thing you could have Gemini / Copilot / etc write for you.

Is there a specific application / project you are trying to install, or is this some kind of test environment? If it's an application, is it specifically Windows or Linux based, or do you have a choice of platforms? Given a choice, I'd probably go with Linux as that seems to be more common for Docker based images - you'll often find common Linux packages have ready-to-go Docker images for public download. I've found Gemini to be quite good at answering detailed questions about fiddly Linux configuration details (other chatbots are possibly equally capable, but Gemini is the one we have paid-for access to at the moment). I'm currently working on a Docker-based project to implement remote desktops for pupil software development environments, so I can possibly help / advise if you have any specific issues getting some particular stuff working inside Docker. I found installing Pangolin, which can handle your user logins via Google/Microsodt accounts, a good place to start as it has a configuration script that handles installing and setting up Docker for you, and it gives you a secure login to start with while you're figuring out whatever other package you are trying to set up.

If it's any help, we have a Linux VM (Debian Trixie) running on HyperV which then runs Docker. That might or might not match what you need to do - if you want to run a Linux-based Docker image that should work nicely. What are you trying to run?

Yes, we use Ubiquiti switches (core, edge, and additional edge-edge switches where we don't currently have enough ports available) and WiFi. An issue to be aware of: Ubiquiti's managed WiFi access points can do meshing, where an access point can act as a bridge between sections of the network if there isn't a wired connection available (or a cable breaks, etc). This works very well, and seems to be turned on by default. It works so well that, after we lost a section of cable due to (best guess at the moment) mice, we didn't notice for several weeks. It turned out that the network had basically self-healed and all the network traffic for a floor's worth of traffic was going through a WiFi access point instead of through a cable. When the cable was replaced, Ubiquiti's system spotted a network loop and disabled the (10GbE fibre) wired connection rather than simply stop meshing, so all the traffic was still going through the WiFi. We've turned off the meshing feature on most access points now as it was causing confusion - very handy feature for some situations, but best turned on as needed.

I spent yesterday getting it home and set up. I use MacOS fairly regularly at work but generally on desktop machines, I don't much like trackpads. I'm not sure if this trackpad is average, but I found it quite fiddly to use, and somewhat variable as to how it registered clicks. The problem is probably mostly me not being used to a trackpad. I've also not used the keyboard for any real amount of typing yet, either, but it does seem solid enough. We've ordered a (USB C) wired mouse, an AV adaptor so we can connect HDMI, USB and power when using with a large screen, a power supply and a sleeve - none of those come with the basic device, so factor in maybe another £50 depending on how you (or your staff / pupils) will be using it. The AV adaptor, in particular, I'm interested to see if the cheaper (£12), non-Apple version we've bought works okay compared to the Apple version (£70!).