WolfTech Billboard Screensaver

WolfTech Billboard Screensaver for Windows

Since development, the Billboard software has required a Mac in order to properly run. For the most part, these restrictions were due to the webXsaver (the screensaver that allowed Billboard to run locally) only working on OSX-based hosts. Today, I am happy to announce the unveiling of the new WolfTech Billboard Screensaver for Windows hosts. The screensaver has been tested on the following Windows operating systems: Windows XP, Windows 7 32-bit, and Windows 7 64-bit

Configuration

WBS comes with the following options pre-configured

• Display URL is set to http://billboard.ncsu.edu/
• Screenshots are set to "Enabled"
  • This takes a screenshot of your Billboard every 30 seconds while WBS is running and uploads it to Billboard at the URL: http://billboard.ncsu.edu/live_view/[your Billboard's IP].jpg
• Behavior is set to "Wake on Mouse Movement/Keyboard Press"
• Customize User Agent is set to "Yes"
  • This updates a registry key on the system to include the words "WolfTech Billboard" in your Internet Explorer user agent and affects all Internet Explorer instances on the computer for the current user.

Note: WBS's options are set at the Current User level within the registry. This means that any custom options you set will need to be modified using the user account you plan to run Billboard under. Otherwise they will reset back to the defaults.

Differences between the WolfTech Billboard Screensaver (WBS) and webXsaver:

• webXsaver uses Safari as its rendering engine; WBS uses Internet Explorer 8
• WBS can also be run as a standalone application; not just a screensaver (simply change the extension from SCR to EXE)
• WBS can update the Internet Explorer User Agent to help identify when the screen saver is accessing a page.
• Has multiple behaviors:
  • Wake on Mouse Movement/Keyboard Press
  • Wake only on Alt + F4
• Automatically takes screenshots of the board every 30 seconds, allowing you to check the status of it without remoting in, easily link the image in to your webpage, and use the screenshot to help report or find errors. Note: Screenshots are saved locally to the Common Program Files folder (C:\ProgramData on Windows 7).
• Allows for computers to be added to the WolfTech Active Directory which (when combined with the proper Group Policy), will allow the Billboard software to be updated with no effort.
• Since new video slides will be able to use a Windows Media Player plug-in, compared to the Quicktime plug-in that webXsaver/Safari use. This will allow for better video playback compatibility.
• Flash performance is significantly better under IE on a Windows-based machine

Issues with WBS

• The main issue with WBS is remote administration of the machine. While OSX allows for Remote Access to the Apple controlling Billboard without interrupting the screen saver, Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection does not. In addition to this, after changes are made, the screensaver will not automatically restart on the Billboard screen. The computer must be restarted before it resumes. For this reason, we’ll be designing a custom Billboard login background that will display on the computer when someone has remotely logged into it.
• Internet Explorer doesn’t support certain CSS attributes that are currently being used by some slides (namely: text-shadow). Drop shadows can still be added through the use of IE filters, however they disable ClearType text processing which makes things less visually appealing.