Signage

Requirements

• Rock RMS 19.4 or later.
• HTTPS for offline playback. Over plain HTTP the player works but can't store anything.
• Rock RealTime, which is on by default.
• TVs with a current browser: Chrome, Chromium, Edge or Firefox, including kiosk systems such as Porteus Kiosk and OpenKiosk.

Install

Install Signage from the Rock Shop (Admin Tools › Rock Shop). Rock restarts and creates:

• Admin Tools › Installed Plugins › Signage, with the Dashboard, Playlists, Display Groups and Preview pages;
• a hidden Player page at /signage/tv, viewable by everyone so TVs don't need to log in;
• a Signage Media file type and a Signage schedule category.

The Signage pages are viewable by the RSR - Staff Workers and RSR - Staff Like Workers roles, and changes need Edit on the page's block (administrators have it). Change this with normal Rock page and block security.

Set up

1. Check the Internal Application Root. In Admin Tools › Settings › Global Attributes, Internal Application Root should be the https:// address TVs can reach. Every address Signage shows starts with it.
2. Add a TV. On Signage › Dashboard, click Add Display. Name the display, make a display group for it (screens in a group always show the same thing), and choose its playlist: one you already have, or a new one. The dialog then carries on: Upload Images and Videos (many at once), then When It Plays to schedule the playlist. At times with no schedule the screen is black (or shows the group's message) until you set a Default Playlist on the group's page. Make the display's Player URL (shown in the dialog with a Copy button) the TV's home page.
3. More later. On a playlist, Play on a Display Group puts it on a group at set times, such as an event, or as its default playlist. On a display group's page you can add, edit and reorder its schedules (Add Schedule can also make a new, empty playlist), see the This Week timeline with each playlist's start and end times, and manage the group's screens: Identify, rename, move, copy the Player URL, reload or remove.

Kiosk tips

• The Player URL carries the display's key, so kiosk systems that clear their storage when they restart (Porteus Kiosk, Edge kiosk mode, private windows) keep working as the same display.
• For video sound in Edge or Chrome, add --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required to the browser's command line. Muted videos play without it.

Using it

• Add or remove slides: open the playlist. Turn a slide off with its switch, or delete it. Slides can also have start and stop dates.
• Campus slides: set a slide's Campuses to show it only on display groups at those campuses. Leave it blank to show it everywhere. Set each display group's Campus so this works. To check, open Preview, choose the playlist on its own and set As Campus.
• A one-off event: make a playlist for it, then choose Play on a Display Group › At set times. It goes to the top of the group's schedules, shows instead of the usual content while it runs, and stops by itself.
• An emergency or urgent notice: on the dashboard, click Send Alert. Choose the level (red, amber or blue), where it shows (all displays, some campuses or some display groups) and for how long. It covers the whole screen ahead of every schedule. Clear it on the dashboard when it's over, or let it end by itself. To let someone send alerts without Edit, add them to the Dashboard block's Send Alert permission.
• What plays when: an alert, if one is showing, comes first. Otherwise the first schedule (from the top of the group's list) that is running and has something to show wins. If none does, the group's default playlist plays. If that has nothing to show, the screen is black, or shows the group's Message When Nothing Is Scheduled.
• Check before it happens: Signage › Preview shows what a group plays at any date and time, and why.
• Find a screen: Identify (the eye button) on the dashboard or the display group's page shows the display's name on its screen. On the TV itself, press I for an info box.
• Black bars around pictures or videos: a picture or video that isn't the same shape as the screen (for example 16:9 on a 16:10 TV) shows whole, with bars. To fill the screen instead, set the display group's Pictures and Videos to Fill the Screen; the edges that don't fit are trimmed, so keep text away from them.

FAQ

Uninstall

Rock doesn't run uninstall steps automatically, so the plugin package includes them. When you install from the Rock Shop, Rock keeps a copy of the package on the server.

1. Get the uninstall script. On the Rock server, open the Rock web folder, then App_Data\RockShop\ and the Signage folder inside it. Copy the newest .plugin file somewhere else, rename the copy to end in .zip, and open it. Inside is uninstall\run.sql. If you can't reach the server, email us for the script.
2. Run it in Admin Tools › SQL Editor. It removes the pages, blocks, tables, uploaded slide files and settings, and the schedules in the Signage category that nothing else in Rock uses.
3. Delete the plugin files from the Rock web folder: Bin\com.worksinallthings.Signage.dll and the folder Plugins\com_worksinallthings\Signage. You can also delete the package's folder in App_Data\RockShop.
4. Restart Rock.

Reinstalling later: Rock remembers Rock Shop installs in App_Data\InstalledStorePackages.json, so the Rock Shop will still show the plugin as installed. To reinstall, either copy the content folder from the saved package into the Rock web folder and restart Rock, or remove the Signage entry from that file and install from the Rock Shop again. The uninstall script clears the plugin's setup history, so either way it sets itself up from scratch.