Specifications

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Welcome to Black Box Digital Signage

Layout C runs at all other times, throughout the week

More about Schedules...

Layout

A Layout is the arrangement of all the different display areas (Zones) that are displayed together. Your Layout may include

video in one Zone, scrolling text in another, a sequence of still images in a third Zone and full-screen zone behind the others

showing your background image. Your audience sees everything in your Layout, so take care to design Layouts that are

attractive and engaging. More about Layouts...

Zone

Your Layout is made up of a number of rectangular areas called Zones, each of which can display Media items. A Layout

can have any number of Zones, of any size, in any location, including overlapping other zones. Generally you need different

Zones for different media types - typically one for a promotional video, one for scrolling text, another for your organization's

name or logo, and so on, though some media types can share the same Zone. Each Zone displays a sequence of Media

items which are arranged into a Playlist. More about Zones...

Playlist

A Playlist is a sequence of Media items that you have chosen to be displayed in a Zone. Each Zone has its own Playlist

which runs continuously, and is independent of all the other Playlists. If you wish, you can synchronize the display between

two Playlists, so that for example, a scrolling text message starts to play at the same time as a related promotional video

or image. More about Playlists...

Media items (content)

You can use your iCOMPEL to display a wide range of Media items. These include fixed and scrolling text, movies,

images, Flash animations, web pages and RSS feeds. To display a media item, you need to add it to a Zone's Playlist. If

your digital signage uses sound, be aware that Audio content and Video with Audio are all treated differently: they are

added to the Soundtrack for the Layout, and not to the Playlist for a Zone. More about Media items...

Ad hoc

Ad hoc allows specific users to change specific elements of a display on an Ad hoc basis. For example, a signage layout

may be designed at a head office , then distributed to each store (this will be covered later) but each store manager can

logon and change the welcome message in their store only, without changing the rest of the layout and change the

messaging on the other stores.

You can allow other people to make minor changes to some parts of your digital signage, by creating special Ad hoc items

and allowing limited access to special pages where those items appear. For example, in a hotel lobby you can define an Ad

hoc text area for meeting room details, and allow the hotel's receptionist access to this area only so they can update the

details every day. More about Ad hoc items...

Administrators and Ad hoc users

You are the Administrator of an iCOMPEL if you have access to the entire iCOMPEL system; can create Layouts and

Schedules, and arrange items in Playlists. If you only have access to a specific page which allows you to alter a limited

number of specific items, you are an Ad hoc User.