Hallway Displays

From CSL Wiki

Notes on Hallway Displays

1 Overview and Basic Operation
2 Architecture
3 Software Details
4 Hardware Details
5 Old notes on Westinghouse displays

Overview and Basic Operation

The CENS hallway display content is generated by three PCs located in the workbench area. Each PC provides output to four displays. The PCs are configured so that when the CENS account is logged in, Internet Explorer automatically starts up with its home page set to a local file, which in turn starts up a web page for each display. To log in, click on the "password hint" question mark icon, and that should give you a clue as to the password--one familiar to CENSweb users.

Currently, the four web pages show initially on the console display, and you must manually reposition the pages on the four different displays. You do this by first centering the web page on the console display, and then click on the Ultramon icon in the upper right of the window. This icon is likely one you've never seen before, with a graphic of a screen and a small arrow. When you click on this icon, a pup-up list of displays appears, with displays number 1,3,4,5, and 6. Display 1 is the console; displays 3-6 correspond to the four associated hallway displays. When you click on one of the displays numbered 3-6, the window immediately "jumps" to that display, and completely disappears from the console display. Repeat this process three more times, and what is left on the console display is a blank white window. You can ignore, close or minimize this window; none of these steps will affect the other displays.

CAUTION: Do not "exit" Internet Explorer, though--this will kill IE completely, including the other pages currently being displayed on all monitors.

If you are having difficulties, or make a mistake, simply log off the CENS account, and log in again. Logging out will terminate IE, and logging in starts up IE fresh. If you're truly frustrated, you can power cycle the PC--these PCs are dedicated to driving the displays, so rebooting should not affect any other activity.

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Architecture

The CENS hallway has a total of fourteen large screen displays: as one enters the hallway from Boelter Hall, there are four displays in a niche on the right; four displays in each of two niches on the left; and two at the far end facing the hallway entry doors.

These displays are wired to a VGA video switch in the CENS server closet; the switch has a web interface for controlling the mapping from wired input to wired output ports, so that any input signal can be mapped (one to many) to any output port.

Three Dell PCs (in the workbench area) are currently dedicated to producing output for the hallway displays; a fourth (in 3551K behind the pair of displays) also provides output, but is additionally used for video/slide production. Each of the three PCs have a pair of dual-output video cards in addition to the standard dual-output console card. Currently, the second output of the console card is unused, and the console output is only wired to a flat panel adjacent to the PC. The other four outputs are each wired to a dedicated VGA signal extender box which amplifies the signals for transmission over a standard Cat5 house line to the server closet patch panel and then jumpered to the video switch. Normally, there are fourteen inputs (four from each of three PCs in the workbench area, and two from the 3551K PC) and 15 outputs: in addition to the fourteen permanent connections to the hallway displays, a small flat panel in the workbench area is normally connected to serve as an output monitor nearby the content-producing PCs. (This helps reduce the frequency of running around the corner to see whether the hallway display is behaving as expected:-)

Each PC has a desktop folder "Hallway" which contains a tiered structure of html files and content files. "Hallway" always has a set of eight files: four (win3.htm, win4.htm, win5.htm, win6.htm) which correspond to the Windows-provided numeric label for the extended desktop, and four (HallwayX) which correspond to the normal hallway monitor that displays the extended desktop content. The HallwayX icons are shortcuts to the corresponding winY files.

On a good day, you should be able to open the "Hallway" folder, double-click on the appropriate HallwayX, and a content-rich window should appear on the _console_ display window. This window needs to be manually moved to the appropriate portion of the extended desktop in the following two step procedure:

manually reposition the window on the console display so that it is flush top and centered
left-click on the window control bar icon for moving windows easily (upper right of window near the "red X box"; it's the one with the diagram of a window and a right-arrow overlaid); a pop-up menu will offer you a choice of desktop displays onto which to move the window; select the appropriate display.

Note that if you ever "lose" the cursor, it may be on part of the extended desktop; you may need to move the mouse to the left many times to get the cursor back on the console display!

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Software Details

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Ultramon

Ultramon (http://realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) is a commercial application for Microsoft Windows users who use multiple displays. The most useful feature of ultramon is the ability to snap a window to another monitor.

After a several-month trial period, CENS purchased 5 licenses (about $35/ea); four are used by the hallway monitor PCs; a fifth is currently (as of 2007-06-20) unallocated.

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Internet Explorer

For simplicity and compatibility with page developers, Internet Explorer 6.x is the initial browser platform. There are known problems with some flash pages (eg, the nextbox status monitor page doesn't refresh correctly under IE).

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Frames

The basic structure of the typical page is composed of at least two frames: an upper "title bar" frame and one or more frames that use the remainder of the vertical space in the display. The basic display is 1280x764, out of which must come the IE title bar, the borders, etc., as well as the frame title bar. That leaves about 1260x700 for use by 'content' frames. If you adopt a layout structure with four equal-sized frames below the title bar in a 2x2 grid, a powerpoint movie fits pretty well when formatted as 320x240. (resolution/legibility can become a problem at this size, however; stick to font sizes above 20pt.)

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tiered template

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Style guidelines

When possible, use white text on a black background, so that the edge of a frame blends into the black border of the display itself. Use a black background with white text in all powerpoint movies, for the same reasons. Sometimes this isn't feasible, especially when working with old powerpoint presentations that rely on a white background for legibility.

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Upgrading a vanilla XP install (as of 2008-01-30)

A successful export of the hallway display code to another platform requires (at least) the following:

creation of a "CENS" account, and create a "Hallway" folder.

verification that the primary drive is "C:" (if not, eg it's "D:" you'll need to edit all of the files that reference a content file, which are all absolute pathnames.)

find the security parameter in IE that allows DirectX code to be run locally. Look in the Internet Options/Advanced menu in the Security section for "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer".