Interactive capability

[gerry]

Is there any way in xl to be able to incorporate external text at run time into say the scrolling text effects ?

For example, the ability to check for a new string of text in a text file and display that ?

If there was and the sequences are being run on the Pi,  how would that then work ?

[flyinverted]

One of the features/plugins of the PI player is the ability to include text on a running display.

Your best bet for help is on the Falcon Forum.

http://falconchristmas.com/forum/index.php?board=8.0

I did see on the ABC light fight someone incorporate a script that allowed for text messages via hashtag or SMS to a given number to display along with some keyword filtering to prevent dirty works from showing up.

[kevinp]

Matt Johnson, http://www.johnsonlightshow.com, incorporated this into his show.  This might be what Steve is referring to since Matt's display was part of the TV show last year.

From his web site...
"In 2014, I wrote a custom software interface that allows viewers to send a text message of their name from their cell phone and it will scroll the name across two of our large pixel Jumbo-tron grids in 4 foot letters for everyone to see! This is a level of interactivity and technology we have never seen on any other house and has a great “cool” factor for the public since it makes them part of the show."

[sean]

the answer is
xlights player cannot do real time merging of effects into teh runnign show. We talked about adding this a few years ago but since the Falcon Player came out in 2013 most of us are using that to run our shows.

xlighst will never be able to match the capability of FPP. Since nearly all of us are on FPP as our show player, we have no plans to try and enhance the xlights player. In fact, the xlights player has not been enhanced for 3 or more years. It works, it is solid, it has no lag.

FPP is in a league of its own. This is why
1) FPP runs Linux on a rapberry pi or beagle bone black single board computer.
This gives 8-40 ourside input ports.
2) Raspberry pi (rpi) has 1080p HDMI video with a graphics accelerated chip.
3) You can have hundreds of FPP's connected giving more than 4 million channels of output for your show
4) 1 master, many slaves. slaves can be across the street or in another state.
5) Real time memory overlays. This allows users to text their name and have it appear (in real time) across the current running show.

for more info on the free FPP software go to http://falconchristmas.com/forum/index.php/board,8.0.html

FAQ for the FPP
http://falconchristmas.com/wiki/index.php/FPP:FAQ

[gerry]

Thanks all,

I will be using xlights , the PI and FP and the (BBB and FP , Panels) this year. I have reached as far as configuring the FP on PI2 (which I bought last month) , loading a full sequence from xlights , connecting two physical  elements to the PI and ensuring that the lights flashed as expected to the music . So am quite happy.
Also ran the lights directly via XL first .

(But it has been largely following what the videos show and what others have done on the forum) without technically understanding the different components in depth as yet.

is there a link , any text or a video that anyone knows off that would show how the 'Real time memory overlays' work ?
If not , I will post the same question on that forum.
 
In one of Sean's videos on FP functionality and configuration that I found very useful , Sean said that this would be covered in another video.