ShowTouch User Guide TM
Document Revision 2.1 June 27, 2014 Copyright 1996-2013 Alcorn McBride, Inc. All rights reserved. Every effort has been made to assure the accuracy of the information contained in this manual, and the reliability of the Alcorn McBride ShowTouch hardware and software. Errors can sometimes go undetected, however. If you find one, please bring it to our attention so that we can correct it for others. Alcorn McBride welcomes comments and suggestions on the content and layout of its documentation.
Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... 1 Welcome .......................................................................................................................................... 3 What is ShowTouch? ................................................................................................................... 3 Important Information ..........................................
Testing the Interface ................................................................................................................... 32 Connecting to the Controller ................................................................................................................. 32 Searching for Controllers ...................................................................................................................... 33 Working with Controllers ...................................................
Welcome What is ShowTouch? ShowTouch is complete touch panel interface design and control software. It is available on multiple platforms consisting of the following products: ShowTouch for Windows PC ShowTouch Panel Hardware in 7, 10, and 17 inch models ShowTouch for iOS It is easy to use and ready-to-go straight out of box. It can be used to control and monitor any Alcorn McBride Ethernet-enabled controller such as the V16Pro.
Important Information Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine product. Before reading this user guide, please make sure to read the important information in your controller user guide. If you do not read the controller user guide, you may not understand some, or all of the information presented here. Please do not break this product. It is pretty heavy for its size and that means it was probably expensive.
Getting Started What’s In The Box Please make sure the following items were received in the box: ShowTouch hardware Power supply Ethernet crossover cable This user guide Hardware Setup 1. Ethernet ShowTouch must be connected via Ethernet to your show controller or show control network. The Ethernet connector is located on the side of the panel. You may configure the connection settings from within the ShowTouch interface (see “Changing the Network Settings”). 2.
Control Panel The Control Panel provides access to all features require to create, edit, and run an interface. The Control Panel is only available on ShowTouch for PC, ShowTouch10, and other edit-capable ShowTouch products. The Control Panel is not available on ShowTouch products that do not support editing. For example, ShowTouch for iOS and ShowTouch7 provide only a streamlined interface used to locate interface files stored on your controller and run them.
Save Save changes to the interface. Select “Save” or “Save As” to save changes to the Touch interface file on the local device. Use “Save To Controller” to save and immediately transfer the interface file to a controller (See “Working with Remote Servers”). Options Change options related to the interface only.
System Change settings on ShowTouch hardware platforms. This is where network settings can be viewed and changed, the administrator password can be changed (which is used only for things like access to the ShowTouch FTP server), and the system can be shutdown. See “System Settings” for additional information.
System Settings To connect ShowTouch to your control network, it is most likely that you will need to change one or more of the settings. System settings include the network addresses for all Ethernet ports and the administrator password used primarily for the FTP server. It is also possible to shutdown the ShowTouch hardware so that the power can be safely disconnected. Touch “System” from the Control Panel to display these settings. Changing the Network Settings 1.
2. Enter the new password and then confirm the password. Passwords are case-sensitive. Note: The default password is “password”. The admin user name is “admin” and cannot be changed. 3. Touch “OK” when done so that the changes can be saved. Displaying the Log 1. Touch “Display Log” to display the activity log. Figure 1 Log The date and time of the most recent actions are shown in the activity log.
Additional Options The majority of the interface is designed in the edit mode. Some options related to the interface, but not directly part of it, are provided from the Control Panel by touching “Options” Changing the Unlock Code 1. Touch “Change Unlock Code” 2. Enter the current unlock code by pressing the numbered buttons. 3. If correct, you can now enter and confirm a new unlock code just as when the interface was first created.
Changing Screen Saver Settings 1. Touch “Screen Saver” 2. Check or uncheck the “Enabled” setting 3. Enter the number of minutes to wait before automatically switching to the screen saver Note: The screen saver is an image slide show. You can add or remove images from the screen saver by changing the files in the Touch Screensaver directory. See the section on “FTP Access” for more information.
Advanced Options Advanced options are designed to modify or extend the Touch software for specific uses. Keyboard Mapping Enable this option to allow a keyboard key press to start the action assigned to a button. The edit button menu will display a keyboard mapping selection when this option is enabled. Interactive Scale and Rotate Disable this option if the handles used for scaling and rotating items are not needed.
Run and Edit Modes Before you begin using ShowTouch, it is important to understand the differences between Run and Edit modes. Run Mode If the option to “Load File on Startup” is set, the Run mode will be entered immediately when ShowTouch is powered on. It is also possible to enter Run mode manually using the “Connect & Run” button on the Control Panel. While in Run mode, the user can only interact with the currently loaded interface.
Edit Mode If the system is not in Run mode, then it is in Edit mode. In Edit mode it is possible to create new interfaces, edit an existing interface, change system settings, and adjust options. When in Edit mode, the system is “Unlocked,” which means all secure pages can be accessed without entering an unlock code. Switching to Run Mode To exit Edit mode, and switch to Run mode, touch “Connect & Run” from the Control Panel.
Interface Design There are two ways to create a new interface: directly on an edit-capable ShowTouch panel or using the ShowTouch software on a PC. The ShowTouch software for the PC is based on the same software that runs on ShowTouch so you will find that there are many similarities between the two. The information in this guide assumes you will create the interface using the ShowTouch software on a PC and then transfer the completed interface to the controller for distribution.
Screen Resolution Once an unlock code has been entered and confirmed, the default screen resolution of the interface can be selected. Select your device and click “Next”. You can change the resolution of each page at any time while editing so if you are unsure of the exact device, you can enter a custom resolution that will suit your needs.
How are you working? If you are working with WinScript Live and/or have a controller available, read the description of your selection below the Start button to decide how you would like to work. To start editing your new interface immediately, select “Touch Only” and “Offline” then click “Start”. You can always select a controller or script later from the Controller Settings. Editing the Interface There are two things to consider while editing the interface: design and function.
Editing Modes There are three modes used for editing the interface: workspace, windowed, and full screen. Workspace mode is the preferred mode to begin editing. It provides access to settings through the menu bar, page navigation through a list of thumbnails, and the ability to monitor operations using the log window. You can add items to any page and, because of the controller’s powerful “Live mode,” you can test everything as you build the interface.
The Touch software can start in Windowed mode automatically by creating a custom Windows shortcut. To create a shortcut on your Windows Desktop, right click and select “New->Shortcut”. Select the Touch executable found in Program Files under “Alcorn McBride Inc/Touch”, then select properties for the newly created Shortcut and add /windowed followed by the file name to open. Full screen mode Full Screen mode is designed to closely simulate all aspects of dedicated ShowTouch hardware.
Creating a New Page You can add additional pages by right-clicking in the Pages thumbnail list or by selecting “Touch”->”Pages” from the menu bar. A window with the list of pages will be shown along with options to create new pages and rename or delete existing pages. If an existing page is renamed, all buttons that are instructed to display that page will be updated with the new page name.
Selecting a Connection Each page can be assigned to a connection. This allows ShowTouch to communicate with multiple controllers. When a page is created, the Default connection is selected. The name of the default connection is shown to the side for reference. The default connection can be changed from the Controllers dialog. To use a connection other than the default, select it from the drop-down list.
Selecting Multiple Items Click-and-hold in a blank area of the page, then drag a selection box around the items you would like to select. Scaling and Rotating Items Click-and-drag one of the selection handles to scale or rotate an item or group of items. Only the handle in the upper-right corner of the selection can be used to rotate. You can scale the selected item(s) using the keyboard ‘-’and ‘=’ keys. You can rotate using the keyboard ‘,’ and ‘.’ keys.
Working with Arrange Selection Arrange items will position all selected items relative to the page or relative to each other. Each menu icon shows a dotted green line to indicate how the selected items will be positioned. Items can also be arranged by the order they are stacked. To Front (Page Up on the keyboard) will bring the selected item to the top of all other items. To Back (Page Down on the keyboard) will send the selected item behind all other items.
Popup Menus Menus that appear on the page when a right-click or double-click occurs are called popup menus. These menus are used to create items and adjust page and interface settings. New Item and Options Menu This menu is used to add the most common items to the page and to access options for the page and for the interface.
More Items Menu This menu is used to add items that may not be used as often.
Items Items are added to the page when they are selected from a popup menu, dragged from the resources tool window, or dragged from the new item tool window. Each item type has its own appearance and action on the page. The appearance can change images, text color, position, and other display elements. An action could start a sequence on the controller, display the value of a variable, or just display a different page. A list of all items on the current page is available in workspace and windowed modes.
Item Types Type Interface Design Appearance Actions Buttons have a pushed and a not-pushed state. Each state can have its own image, text position, and text color. The button action occurs only after the button has been clicked and released Start Sequence Change Page Set Variable Toggle Output Valid image formats include jpg, png, bmp, and gif.
Type Appearance Actions A Toggle can change the state of an output or Boolean variable, which makes it an interactive version of the Indicator type. Boolean Variable Output An Action Indicator combines a Button and an Indicator into one easy-to-use item. The image displayed by the item is updated based on the state of a Boolean variable or sequence. The action can also start a sequence or set the value of a variable.
Changing Item Appearance Item appearance includes images, text, color, and position. To change the appearance of an item, right-click the item to display the edit menu. Each item type has its own edit menu. Each item will have different appearance options. For example, buttons have appearance options for both their pressed and not pressed states. All items have a default appearance. Checking the box on the appearance window that says “Use As Default Appearance” will change the default.
Changing Item Action The item action will determine how the item behaves. Each item type has its own set of actions available. When an item is first created, it has no action. Most items will need the controller script before their action can be set (See “Connecting to the Controller”). One exception to this is the button item. Although the button requires a script for some actions, the action to display a different page is always available.
Resources When a WinScript Live script file is loaded into the ShowTouch software, the list of resources is populated. Resources such as Sequences, Variables, and Outputs can be dragged directly from the resource list onto a page. An item will be dropped at the location where the resource is released and automatically assigned an appropriate action. For example, dragging a sequence onto the page will create a button that will start the sequence when pressed.
When the script is received, the item action windows will be filled with the available sequences, variables, and other show controller resources. Handling Multiple Connections It is possible to create more than one connection so that multiple show controllers can be controlled and monitored from a single ShowTouch. To add a new connection, click “New” at the bottom of the Controller dialog. You can view the settings and current state for each connection by clicking the “Prev” and “Next” buttons.
Working with Controllers ShowTouch can open from and save to a controller. This makes it convenient to distribute an interface to multiple ShowTouch devices and provides an implicit backup of each design. Open from Controller 1. Touch “Open” from the Control Panel 2. Touch “Open From Controller” 3. Enter the IP address of the controller 4. Enter the user name and password 5. Enter the name of the remote file.
Save to Controller 1. Touch “Save” from the Control Panel 2. Touch “Save To Controller” 3. Enter the IP address of the controller 4. Enter the user name and password 5. Enter a name for the remote file 6. Touch “Send” to send the file to the controller. A progress bar will display transfer progress as data is sent. Note: Any existing file on the server with the same name will be overwritten.
FTP Access ShowTouch relies on FTP to transfer interface files to and from the controller. This is covered in the section on “Working with Controllers.” It is also possible to transfer files directly to ShowTouch. This is only necessary for updating firmware and changing screen saver images, but can also be useful for transferring interface files from the PC Touch software directly to ShowTouch. Connecting to ShowTouch using FTP 1. Identify the IP address of the ShowTouch you want to connect to.
Maintenance ShowTouch is designed to run continuously under normal conditions with no maintenance. If ShowTouch is installed in an environment with a high concentration of smoke or dust, it is recommended that the unit be dusted using compressed air as often as necessary to keep the air vents free of any debris that may build-up over time. Cleaning the Touch Screen The touch screen and front bezel can be cleaned with rubbing alcohol or any glass cleaner such as Windex using a clean rag or paper towel.
Quick Reference File Types .tca – Touch Interface File Contains the interface design and all resources used within the interface .png – Portable Network Graphics .jpg – JPEG .bmp – Bitmap .
Specifications ShowTouch7 12VDC at 5 Amps ShowTouch10 12 VDC at 5 Amps ShowTouch17 12 VDC at 7 Amps An external power supply is included with ShowTouch and will provide the required input power. The power supply rating is 100 to 240 VAC, 50 to 60 Hz, 60-watts maximum.
Mechanical Drawings ShowTouch7 ShowTouch7 3U Rack-mount Kit Specifications Page 40
ShowTouch10 Units in inches Specifications Page 41
ShowTouch10 Wall-mount kit ShowTouch10 6U Rack-mount kit Units in inches Specifications Page 42
ShowTouch17 Specifications Page 43
ShowTouch17 9U Rack -mount kit Specifications Page 44
