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What to look forward to in 1.7 and beyond
Posted on October 23, 2014October 22, 2014 by Dan Garner

The Xibo Project is fast approaching a stable 1.7 release of Xibo named Tuttle and wed like to let
our community know what to expect and what to look forward to.

2013 - At the start of 2013 we had some good news for Xibo and we wrote about it in our blog post
Upcoming in 2013. Between then and now our remit for 1.5/1.6 grew into something much larger
and resulted in 10 releases packed with new features.

2014 Another exciting year for Xibo which has resulted in Spring Signage being able to provide full
time development resources for Xibo. These resources came on-line in August 2014 and allowed us
to speed up the improvement of the product and the products quality. In only 3 months we have a
new website, new Xibo in the Cloud services, two 1.6 bug fixing releases and two alpha releases of
1.7 (Tuttle).

1.7 - our focus for Xibo 1.7 has been usability. We want to shake off our digital signage for tech
people image and become the digital signage for everyone solution that our tag line promises. To
do this we have had to re-engineer a number of Xibo processes as well as focus more on the user
experience.

Here are some of the things you can expect to see in 1.7:

A new CMS theme.
Help on every form field.
A new installer and updater with more information.
A better calendar.
More translations, fewer gaps.
Simplified client installation.
Centralised client settings.
More modules (clock, weather).
Multi-select for key transactions.
Better layout design experience.
The usual general bug fixes, patches and improvements.

We hope to have 1.7 fully released as a stable version early 2015.

1.8 code named Tempel, 1.8 is our future release that we have targeted for stable release in
summer 2015. The exact roadmap is still being developed but we have 2 key objectives to meet with
this release:

Playlists within regions reusable playlists with start/end dates that exist inside a region and can
be reused across multiple layouts.
Interactive Signage events (buttons, sensors, rs232, bluetooth) to trigger actions in Xibo (layout
changes, playlist changes in regions).

We are very grateful to the Xibo community for the support with reporting bugs, asking and
answering questions and Xibo for Android purchases. We hope that the above is as exciting for new
and existing users as it is for us.
Posted in News, Project Tagged features, press, tuttle, upcoming
Upcoming in 2013
Posted on April 27, 2013 by Dan Garner

In 2012 the Xibo Project saw some excellent growth and some equally good improvements to the
platform we are aiming for the same in 2013 and want to push forwards to offer some great new
features. Here are a few highlights of the last 12 months!

10,000 known displays running Xibo (we strongly suspect 4 times this figure)
55,000 downloads of the 1.4 series of applications
1,000 fans on our Facebook page
130,000 downloads of the 1.2 series of applications
Launching the new Website
1.4 as the most stable release yet
DataSets, Permissions, Campaigns and Shell Commands
Launching Xibo for Android to help support the project
More community activity on Launchpad than ever before

So what can you expect? Looking ahead to 2013 we have 3 main goals on our road mapCapture of
new theme layout designer
Content Management System a new look and better themes

We have been hard at work implementing a cleaner, more professional, easier to use theme for the
content management system. It is due to be released as a development preview shortly and we
hope will bring a fresh experience to the Xibo User Interface. At the same time we have been adding
a workable theme engine so that you can add your own feel to the User Interface and have a
sensible upgrade path once you have done so!
Improved Media Choices

Many of the basic features in Xibo were born over 6 years ago and have remained mostly the same
since then we have become aware that a lot of items are very outdated and that we are missing
some basic functionality offered by our paid competitors. We dont like this situation and we will be
working hard to improve it the following areas are first in line for some TLC:

Images and slideshows easily grouping images into slide shows and transitioning between each
image.
Tickers more support and better support for different feeds, better user interface for designing
your item template, extracting items from feeds, custom sources for feeds.
Videos gap-less playback of videos in a sequence.
Clock a standard clock media type.
Weather a standard weather media type.
DataSets data types and formula support for columns, location awareness for displays and
allowing a dataset to be the source for a ticker.
Transitions adding transition support for the Ubuntu Client and as much support as possible on
the Windows Client.

Xibo API

The API has been developed in the background for a long time we want to bring this development
into focus so that you can start using it to build applications and extensions to Xibo. The API will
support all functions of the Xibo system and should allow 3rd parties to develop anything from a
layout designer to a display management application.
A note on Android

As the project has become more popular it has grown into a large community and placed much more
demand on our resources (which is excellent!!) however it became obvious that we needed a way
of commercially supporting the community platform. We decided to do this by launching a low cost,
yet full featured Android client (Xibo for Android).

This has been a great success and has already allowed us the time to develop many additional
features for the Xibo Project. A big thank you to all our BETA testers and customers so far.

We have also been able to continue our sponsorship of the Goldstone Griffins Football Club and we
hope to be able to provide more support for this local team!
Posted in News Tagged features, press
Introducing a new region Timeline editing window
Posted on June 26, 2012 by Dan Garner

The next article in the run up to 1.4 looks at improvements to the region timeline editor and layout
preview. Our intentions with these improvements are:
The vertical timeline is a sortable list

To make the region time line more consistent, easy to understand and allow it to support more
media modules
Simplify re-ordering the items in the timeline
Make it easier to add new items from the library
To make the region preview reflect the client more closely

Region Timeline

The region timeline has been re-designed to use a vertical list of media nodes which are all the
same fixed height. The module add buttons are repositioned to the left hand side, and a simple text
preview is positioned on the right hand side, on hover.

In addition all of the media nodes in the timeline can be dragged and sorted like a list, they will not
be saved in their new order until the re-order button is clicked, allowing the user to make more
than one change at a time. Also the media nodes automatically flow around the one that is being re-
ordered. Making the entire process more elegant.
Available media and media to assign are shown in two lists

The same is true when the user comes to assigning media from the library. The interface has been
improved to used a 2-list style interface of available/assigned media. Items can be dragged and
dropped from the available list to the assignment list and re-ordered before assignment.
Region Preview

Where possible the region preview has been updated to better reflect the options selected for each
media item. This will allow greater accuracy between what is designed using the editor and what is
seen on the actual display client.



These updates are a small set in the right direction for our layout designer our hope is that they
are well received, but as always we welcome any comments and discussion over on Launchpad
Answers.
Posted in Features Tagged features
Introducing a threaded, more robust Windows Client with improved library management
Posted on June 5, 2012 by Dan Garner

The next article in the run up to 1.4 looks at improvements to the Windows clients connection to
the Xibo server and its library management.

These improvements can be categorised into the following areas:

Reduced lag and display jitter when the client is connecting to the Server
Concurrent file downloads
Clearing up old and unused files in the library
Information window showing client status, library status and log information
Replacing the splash screen

Reduced display jitter

The Windows client has always been single threaded which means that it processed instructions
one after the other in sequence. This meant that when the client was doing something intensive that
wasnt displaying content (such as verifying the files that needed download) there was a chance of
display lag or jitter while this other action was occurring. Prime examples of this were displaying
scrolling text, or loading new media when it reached the end of its play time.

The has been greatly reduced in the new client by threading, meaning the client is separated into
different part which all act independently of each other. There are now seperate threads for the
following:

Checking the schedule on the server
Checking the files required on the server
Downloading files from the server
Calculating the valid schedule

Concurrent File Downloads

Another effect of the single threaded design of the old client was that it could only download one
file at a time, in sequence. The new client has been improved to allow a user configurable number of
concurrent downloads.

This allows files to be pulled into clients faster and more efficiently.

In addition to this the client will now resume interrupted downloads, especially useful for clients
with intermittent or slow connections.
Client Info ScreenshotThe Client Info window showing status of all communications, schedule, library
info and recent logs.
Clearing up old and unused files

Anyone that has been running a client for a long time will have noticed that the local client library
doesnt automatically tidy itself up and will get larger and larger as time goes on.

The new client manages this library much more efficiently, clearing up files that are no longer
needed (including temporary files).

This can be managed using the required files look ahead setting in the server increasing this
value causes the client to consider media to be required for longer.
Client status window

It has always been a challenge to see what is going in within the client, especially if it is not showing
what you expect. The new client comes with an info screen which shows you the status of all
communications with the server, the current schedule and the contents of the library (with progress
indicators for current downloads).
Replacing the splash screen

Due to popular demand we have also included an option in the client to replace the Xibo splash
screen with a file on the local PC. We have resisted this in the past because maintaining this
website and the Xibo wiki does cost us some money and de-branding the client has previously
been a good method for funding this site.

However in the interests of being as open as we possibly can, we have chosen to make it easier to
de-brand the client with this splash screen replacement feature. Apologies it has taken us so long
to do this.

If you do decide to replace the splash screen with one of your own, then it would be fantastic for the
project if you made a small donation.

If the image you select is invalid or cannot be found, Xibo will default back to the current splash
screen.
Summary

Our long term intention is still to replace the Windows client with a fully cross platform client
however this is taking us longer than expected due to a number of technical reasons. We hope that
these improvements to the current Windows client will be a good stop-gap for a more
professional, reliable solution while development on the cross platform client continues.
Posted in Features Tagged features
Introducing new features for Service Providers
Posted on June 2, 2012 by Dan Garner
Usage statistics in the Settings WindowUsage statistics can be found in the Settings Window under
the Content tab

The next article in the run up to 1.4 looks at some small new features for people that use Xibo as
service providers. It is difficult to tell how many use Xibo in this manner, as not many come forward
but those that do have mentioned that it would be nice to have a way to manage limits on the
library file size and monthly bandwidth usage.

We have completed this work by virtue of two new settings in the settings table
(LIBRARY_SIZE_LIMIT_KB & MONTHLY_XMDS_TRANSFER_LIMIT_KB) these are not available
through the user interface.

If no limits are entered, everything continues to work as before however once a limit is entered
Xibo will start validating against these limits, and when they are exceeded will prevent the upload of
new media / updates to clients.

A visual queue is provided on the settings page. In the future we will extend this to also include a
bandwidth chart, and some metrics on the dashboard.

Hope this is useful to service providers both those we know about and those we dont! As usual,
comments and thoughts are appreciated over on Launchpad Answers.
Posted in Features Tagged features
Introducing Wake On Lan for Display Clients
Posted on June 1, 2012 by Dan Garner

The next article in the run up to releasing 1.4 will look at the new Wake On Lan (WOL) feature of
Xibo.
Edit Display FormWOL Settings on the Edit Display Form

There has been a lot of interest over the years Xibo has been running for a solution to be green,
save power and generally not have the Xibo display screen solution on unnecessarily. The Xibo
project has been very keen to put these things in place, and 1.4 will contain a number of measures
to make these wishes a reality.

The WOL function is intended to be used for display clients that are addressable by the server, by
this we mean that there has to be a clear addressable network route between the server and the
client that needs to wake up. It is also required that WOL is turned on in any necessary settings on
the client PC.

The WOL configuration happens on a display by display basis from the Edit Display form. Each
display has new settings for:

Enable Wake On LAN (Turn WOL on/off for the display)
Wake On LAN Time (Specify a time for this display to wake, using the 24 hr clock)
BroadCast Address (The BroadCast address of the client, if unknown use the IP address and fill in
the CIDR field)
Wake On LAN Secure On (The SecureOn password for the client, if supported)
Wake On LAN CIDR (The CIDR subnet mask, if the BroadCast Address is unknown)

Once the display has these settings it can be woken up in 2 ways:
Wake On LAN Now
WOL Now ButtonWake On LAN button can be used to wake up the client immediately

Each display has the Wake On LAN button which can be used to send a wake on LAN command on
demand. Clicking the button displays a form for confirmation, once this is pressed the command is
send immediately to the client.
Wake On LAN Time Maintenance Script

In addition to the WOL now function, the Xibo maintenance module has been altered to send a WOL
packet to any display which has a Wake On LAN Time specified. It will only send the command
once, as the time window is passed.

The maintenance script has to be running for this to work correctly. Maintenance instructions can be
found on the wiki.
Putting the client to sleep

There are a few different options for putting the client to sleep such as a scheduled task. However,
the next article in this series will look at an option built into Xibo. The Shell Command module.

We hope you will find this new functionality useful! As always comments are always welcome over
on Launchpad Answers.
Posted in Features Tagged features
Introducing the Layout Designer Jump List
Posted on May 31, 2012 by Dan Garner
Layout Jump ButtonThe Jump Button icon and form showing list of available layouts.

Its been a while since our last article looking at features of the upcoming 1.4 release. We have a
small but useful enhancement to look at this time Layout Designer Jump List.

This little feature allows navigation between layouts a user has permissions to design, without
having to jump out to the list of layouts each and every time. Its accessible from a new icon on the
layout designer, called Jump to

Once clicked, it presents a list of accessible layouts with a Design button selecting the button will
load corresponding layout into the designer window.
Posted in Features Tagged features
Introducing an Improved Permissions Model
Posted on May 6, 2012 by Dan Garner
Permissions Dialog

The next article in the run up to 1.4 stable release will take a look at the improvements made to the
permissions model in Xibo. There has been long running confusion over the permissions in Xibo and
hopefully this will now be addressed. We have improved the permissions model in 1 key way
allowed users and administrators to set view, edit and delete permissions on:

Library Media
Layouts
Regions in Layouts
Media on Region Timelines
DataSets
Display Groups
Displays

All of these items have the permissions set in the same way, via a simple to use dialog showing
groups and users. In addition to this all permissions are validated with each form load, or save
button clicked so you can guarentee real time modifications to the permissions on items.

Here are some key facts about the new system:

The Highest permission is used (if a user belongs to 2 groups, one has edit permissions and the
other doesnt the user will have edit permissions)
Permissions are tested with each transaction
Permissions on an item can only be changed by the owner or a super administrator (for displays
and display groups that have no owner, this is super admin only)

These permissions are then reflected in all tables, forms, lists and on the layout designer.
Summary

We hope that these improved permissions will make it easier to manage Xibo, particularly in
environments where there are many users accessing the system. As always, all comments and
suggestions are welcome and appreciated over on Launchpad Answers.
Posted in Features Tagged features
Introducing improved User Password Management
Posted on April 28, 2012 by Dan Garner

The next article in the run up to 1.4 stable release will take a look at the improvements made to User
Password Management.

Up until now user passwords and user management in general has not always been clear in Xibo
we have tried to improve the situation with 3 new features/improvements:

Users can change their passwords without having access to the user administration page
Administrators can set a regular expression to test password complexity
Administrators can override users passwords in a more intuitive way

Hopefully this will clear up some confusion with users having access to the user admin page and
ensure better security through more complex passwords (at the administrators discretion)
Settings for the Password Policy on the Permissions Tab
Password Complexity

When designing this feature we wanted the utmost flexibility given to the administrator to test
passwords in which ever way they chose. Therefore we have introduced a new setting in the
Permissions tab called USER_PASSWORD_POLICY (will be translated into the local language before
release).

An administrator can put any valid regular expression in this box, which will cause all users password
change requests (and new users) to be tested against this expression.

It is also important for the user to know what the policy actually is therefore we have introduced
another setting called USER_PASSWORD_ERROR which will be presented to the user when they
enter a password that does not validate against the regular expression.
Users can change their password by clicking on their username
Changing Passwords

A user can now change their password by clicking on their user name in the top right corner of the
admin interface. They will be presented with a form requiring them to enter their existing password,
a new password and a retyped new password all fields are required.

An administrator can now easily override / reset a users existing password by editing the the from
the user admin screen and ticking the box to override.
Summary

We hope that these enhancements will make it easier for administrators and users alike and make
Xibo more flexible and secure! Comments and Feedback are always welcome over on Launchpad
Answers.
Posted in Features Tagged features
Introducing DataSets
Posted on April 15, 2012April 15, 2012 by Dan Garner

As most of our followers are aware the 1.3 series development preview release has been a long time
in the making, in fact we have been working on it for well over a year. As it is getting close to
completion and ready for a 1.4 stable release (a big milestone for us!) we thought it would be a good
idea to pause and reflect on the new features we have managed to cram in.

The first one we are going to look at is the new DataSets feature.


Overview

DataSets are a new Xibo feature to design and display tabular data, formatted nicely, in a region on a
layout.

Examples of where this could be used are:

A drinks menu at a bar
Tee times at a golf club
Meeting room bookings

DataSets have been designed to be versatile and reusable and therefore come in two parts:

The Data (DataSet)
The Display (DataSet View)

This means that you can define a data set as a number of columns, add rows and then create
views of this data on your layouts.


Creating a DataSet
Add DataSetForm to add a new DataSet

DataSets are accessed using the DataSets link in the Management drop down menu, navigating
here will bring you to a very familiar Xibo table view of all the data sets you have permission to
access. You can add a new dataset by giving it a name and an optional description, you can also edit
existing ones and add data.

DataSets also come under the standard permissions options that are available throughout Xibo. The
creator of a dataset (or an admin) is able to set the permissions for the DataSet on a user group, or
on a user by user basis. Only users with Edit permissions will be able to add/edit data and reorganise
the data structure, only users with a view permission will be able to use the DataSet in their layouts.
DataSet ColumnsSet the columns you want

The first thing to do is Add a new DataSet using the Add button (found near the filter form), after
doing so the columns of the DataSet can be defined to describe the structure of the data.
Defining the structure of the data

Data Columns are used to define the structure of the data, each column can have a number of
settings to achieve this, these are:

Heading (the column heading to appear when you enter data
List Content (enter a comma separated list of values in here to display in the drop down list)
Column Order (the order to place the column)

There isnt a theoretical limit to the number of columns Xibo can support although a smaller
DataSet is often easier to enter and display than an overly large one. Columns may be extended in
the future to have support for different data types currently only strings are supported.

Note: Columns can be added and removed after data has been entered. The ordering and list
content of columns can also be changed after data has been collected.
DataSet View DataView and edit the data saved in a DataSet
Adding Data

Once all the required columns have been added, the DataSet is ready to have data recorded against
it. This is done using the View Data task on the DataSet table view. This view will contain all of the
columns that were added in the previous step and allow you to go through each one and enter data.
In future we will look to extend this to support an import from CSV file and perhaps a link to 3rd
party databases.

There is no save button on this interface, Xibo will automatically save your changes after each data
entry.

Note: If all the rows are taken, more rows can be added to the data set by clicking the Add Rows
button.

The DataSet is ready to be used on a layout!


Using the DataSet
Configuring the DataSet View on a Layout

Once a DataSet has been defined anyone with View permissions can use the DataSet on layouts.
They are added by selecting the DataSet button from a region Timeline, which presents a drop
down list of all DataSets available to the user as well as the usual duration field for entering the
duration in seconds that the DataSet should be shown.

Once added, the edit dialog will automatically appear allowing the user to pick their options for the
DataSet View.

On this form the user can specify:

Duration: The duration in seconds
Update Interval: The duration in minutes the data should be cached on the client
Lower Row Limit: The row number to start displaying the data
Upper Row Limit: The row number to end displaying the data
Order: The Ordering of the data (column name ASC|DESC)
Filter: A filter option to filter the data with (Column Name=Value, Column Name=Value)
Show Table Headings: Whether to show the column headings in the table
Columns Selected: The columns to display (drag or double click to move between lists)
Columns Available: The columns available to select (drag or double click to move between lists)
Stylesheet: A CSS Stylesheet to render with the table

The resulting view will be showing the region preview window and displayed on the client.

Note: Once the DataSet view is configured it will automatically respond to edits made on the data
and it multiple views on the same DataSet can be created.


Summary

We hope this new feature will be useful for anyone wanting to display tabular data and will offer a
vast improvement over manually creating a table view in the text editor. We also hope that in the
future we can extend this feature to offer some simple chart generation on the client.

Comments and feedback are always welcome!
Posted in Features Tagged features
Xibo Statistics

Active Xibo Installs: 3103
Active Xibo Displays: 15487
1.4.2 Installs: 7705
1.6.4 Installs: 379
Xibo Installs Ever: 26996

Recent News

What to look forward to in 1.7 and beyond
1.7.0-alpha2 Development Preview Released
Version 1.6.4 Released
1.7.0-alpha Development Preview Released
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