This page will allow you to understand each line in the settings of your native Windows player application.
To access the settings, just start your player application and in the entrance screen, cpllick the gear icon in top right corner of the screen.
Player
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Name – Displays a name for the reporting module. You can either type a name or empty this setting so the name will be generated automatically.
ID – The player device ID. You cannot change this.
Parameters name – A name of a parameters group to personalize this player content.
Parameters key – The unique key of this player to be sent to the parameters group.
Show parameter – This will show the 2 parameters above in the entrance screen, along with the screen key. The default is set to off.
Bug report – This button sends the log files of the app to the cloud, in case there is a suspected bug to report. You can press the combination of Ctrl + Alt + D, instead of clicking this button. Before sending us log files of a suspected bug, better set the “Debug log” setting (under the following “Logging” block) to “on”.
Display
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Full screen – Toggles between full screen mode and window mode. The default is set to on. You can also set this from the entrance page of the app.
Display notifications – This will display connectivity/loading notifications, warnings and errors on screen. The default is set to on, but after setting up a Windows machine with a specific playlist, you’re supposed to turn it off.
Slideshow transitions – This can disable all the transition effects (images + videos) of slides within a slideshow widget. The default is set to on.
Show control bar – This will show/hide the playback controls bar in the top strip of the window. If you use any touch ability, you might want to hide that bar.
Disable mouse control – Turning this on will disable the mouse clicks, so double click won’t toggle your full screen window into window mode (touch will still work and stopping the playing content will be done by Esc key in the keyboard). The default is set to off.
Screen Color – The screen background color which is behind slides and transition effects.
Connectivity
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SSL 2 Connection – This enables SSL secured traffic (HTTPS) on the app. The default is set to off.
Sync frequency – This sets the frequency of inquiring the server for changes in the playlist. The default is every 2 minutes.
Randomize sync time – This shifts the updates (calls to the server) after the start by randomizing the start sync interval. It is meant to reduce the network load. The default is set to on.
Connectivity timespan – This enables the playlist updates only in the defined timespan. It is meant to reduce the network load. The default is set to off.
Work offline – This allows working offline, so the that the playlist will be played from cache only. The default is set to off. Please notice that online widgets such as YouTube, web page, polls and FTP won’t work while in offline mode.
Retry failed downloads – This will try to resume downloading failed media periodically, according the defined sync frequency (the default is off). To learn more click here.
Start Mode
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Resume playlist – This will start the player from the last played slide, in case it stops from any reason (the default is off).
Resume slideshow – This will resume to a slideshow widget to the last played slide. It is useful in case of a slideshow which is longer than the creative assigned duration or in case you think that the slideshow might be cut in the middle (for example, when using the advertising system and setting a short break point interval). The default is off.
Start from cache – The player Will start playing from the cache. For this, the content must be played once before turning this on (the default is off). To learn more click here.
Start on slide ready – When the first slide is ready, it will start playing without waiting for the other slides to complete being downloaded (the default is off).
Dismiss key screen – This will omit the entrance screen when the player application starts running. It is useful in showcase mode. The default is set to off. When it is set to on, in order to make the entrance screen to appear, you need to press Ctrl + Shift + S.
Play Mode
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Skip incomplete slides – Will skip playlist slides which were not fully loaded or have failed during downloading (the default is on). To learn more click here.
Notify on slide skip – If the display notifications is on, it will show a notification when a slide is skipped (the default is on). To learn more click here.
Skip slideshow incomplete slides – Will skip slides of a slideshow widget, within a blended creative, which were not fully loaded or have failed during downloading (the default is on). To learn more click here.
Launch executable – Turning this on will allow launching a 3rd party EXE program either by touching the screen of a running playlist or by tocuhing a specific creative of a running playlist.
Only hide window – Once you turn on the “Launch executable”, if you set this to on, the click/touch feature will take place (either by a triggering creative or by touching the screen), but without triggering any executable.
Exe path – Once you turn on the “Launch executable”, here is where you have to type the full path of the 3rd party program.
Exe arguments – Arguments (parameters) to be sent to a triggered exe program. Example: key1=value1;key2=value2
Triggering creative – Turning this on will allow triggering of the EXE program, by touching a specific creative and not by touching anything that runs.
Creative name – The name of the creative which touching it will trigger the EXE program set above.
Stop executable on inactivity – Turning this on will allow automatic stop of the executable, after a defined amount of inactivity time.
Inactivity time – The inactivity time (in seconds) in which afterwards, the executable will stop (and the signage app will get back to play signage). In case of no executable, it is just inactivity time before the signage app will get back to play signage.
Restart on Inactivity – This can start the player application when there is no activity in the Windows device. The default is set to off. It is for allowing showcase mode, usually in tablets (so, when the buyer in the store leaves or doesn’t touch the tablet, immediately it starts playing a playlist, just like a “screen saver”).
Start inactivity interval – In case of showcase mode, this will set how many seconds will the device stay inactive before it starts playing the playlist.
Dismiss on click – Turning this on will allow stopping the player application when the user touches the screen. It is meant for showcase mode. The default is set to off.
Navigate on click – Turning this on will allow the user (in case of touch screen as in a tablet) to touch the right or left edges of the screen in order to jump to the next slide or previous slide in the playlist.
Keep Screen on – Turning this on will prevent from the screen to turn off when the user presses the power button (to go to sleep mode) or when it happens by timeout. It is useful for showcase mode. The default is set to off.
Force notifications – Turning this on will make all notifications settings to be on.
Play Sync
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Playback clock – Turning this on will turn on the sync feature of using the clock (in front of an NTP server) for exact slide timing. To learn more about the sync feature, please read this technical post.
Reference time – Starting point for sync calculation. The default 6:00. You should change it maybe to one hour before the beginning the playlist.
Clock server – The permanent IP address of the NTP server (on standard port 123, or IP address:port if a custom port was set).
Clock update – Clock refresh interval. The default is 1 minute, should be good for LAN. No need to change anything here.
Wait for clock – When set to on (default), the player will not start the playback until an initial sync was performed. When the server is online, usually the sync is performed far before playback start.
Video accommodation – The delay before starting the video playback. Various devices have different delays on preparing video before playing, some devices also have bugs hanging UI for random 1 – 2 sec while probing MP4 format. This delay can vary significantly even across same device types and will result in loss of synchronization even when having perfect pulses. More delay gives more room to amortize these differences between devices on the expense of a black screen between videos. The default is 2 seconds but can be reduced for fast devices (it should be maximum of possible video load delay among all synchronized devices).
Spread NTP load – This option (by default is false) should be spread the clock server access overtime (to reduce the load over the server).
Trace Clock updates – This option enriches the app’s log for better debugging of synchronization issues. The default is set to off.
Timing debug – Turning this on will show a blinking sync indicator and sync traces on top of content. If there is a problem, but the indicators on the different players are blinking seemingly simultaneously, it means that the players are in sync and the problem is not with pulse synchronization. When the clock server cannot be reached, the indicator becomes red (players still can be in sync for a while if initial update was successful, until clocks diverge too much, on good devices it can be days).
Reliability
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Keep alive – This allows restarting the player application in case it gets stuck. It works as a system service in the background. The default is set to on.
Daily restart – This allows a daily restart for the application. It is recommended and usually unnoticed. The default is set to on.
Restart schedule – If the daily restart is on, this setting will determine when will the restart take place. The default is 00:30. There are several options for multiple restart times. the intervals are not less than every round half an hour.
Restart timing – Determines if the restart will take place just after a playlist round or before the next slide. The default is after playlist round (so the playlist won’t be cut while running).
Force delay – Determines within how many minutes will the restart take place, in case the playlist or slide are too long and the time for the restart has arrived.
Cache Control
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Clear cache – Clicking this will clear all the downloaded contents in order to free space.
Automatic cache cleanup – This allows cleanup of unused media files according the following rules. The default is on.
Minimum free cache – This is the minimum free memory allowed (in MB). Crossing it will trigger the cleanup of unused media files. The default is 100MB
Maximum free cache – This is the maximum memory (in MB) that will be free after cleanup. That means that if the cleanup process was triggered and
started cleaning, it will stop once it reaches this amount of free storage (or when it has nothing else to clean from the cache folder). The default is 500MB.
Max file age – This is the number of days of old unused files to be cleaned. The default is 60 days. Every day at midnight, all media files which are unused for 60 days or more will be deleted from the cache.
Web image widget refresh period – This is the refresh rate of the webimage widget (in minutes). That means after how many minutes will it check for possible new file (with same filename). The default is 120 minutes.
Logging
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Debug log – Allows debug information in the app’s logs. The default is off.
Log files count – The number of files in which the log info will be saved. The default is 5.
Log files total size – The maximum log files’ size. The default is 100MB.
Advanced (this menu appears only in test mode of the app)
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Face recognition – This setting is for future use only.
Touch transitions override – Overrides the default transition settings for touch events only. The default is off.
* Touch transition duration – The touch transition duration in milliseconds. The default is 2000. Setting it to 1 millisecond will be the fastest possible transition.
* Touch skip video ready – Ability to start the transition without waiting for the video readiness (in Windows it’s slow). The default is on.
Server events – Enables receiving server (HTTP) events to the player app.
* Channel ID – The channel ID to be used to receive server events (i.e. useful for Slack integration).
Event transitions override – Overrides the default transition settings for all other events (mainly keyboard events. The default is off.
* Event transition duration – The event transition duration in milliseconds. The default is -1. Setting it to 1 millisecond will be the fastest possible transition.
* Event skip video ready – Ability to start the transition without waiting for the video readiness (in Windows it’s slow). The default is off.