Interface customisation in fpp

[masten]

Hello

Just looking at the possibility of getting fpp.

Im particularly interested in being able to define the interface myself.

Will I be able to

1. make it so that the text 'Click here for full screen' fades in and out in a corner of the interface a specified no. of times.

2. Change the 'press esc to exit fullscreen' graphic to a graphic of my own.

Many thanks

Masten

[phberlin]

Hi Masten,

Will I be able to

1. make it so that the text 'Click here for full screen' fades in and out in a corner of the interface a specified no. of times.

Absolutely. You can do almost anything you can imagine as long as it can be done using images and tweening. All of the customization is done via a special XML-language that FPP understands.


2. Change the 'press esc to exit fullscreen' graphic to a graphic of my own.


I guess you mean the one showing in the center of the screen when you change to fullscreen. No, you won't be able to change this, because it's a flash security thing and has nothing to do with FPP. Besides, this hint is automatically shown in the standard language of the user's OS, so it's not always english of course.

[masten]

Hi phberlin

Ok. Great. Is this XML language difficult to learn. I dont need to become a master of it. Just do the basic stuff like what I said,

I would want it to fade in and out say 3 times in the first panorama of a virtual tour -just to get the users attention, and then stop - and not repeat again until they come back to the Virtual Tour another time.

Many thanks
Masten

[discocandy]

for a start flashificator will be good for you to use..
the free version makes usable files for you to use at first.
when you master the skill of ths type of xml.. a world opens for you.
:cool:

flashificator free version (http://flashificator.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3&sid=92a9be08a309b16cd9ce959046d000f6)

[masten]

Hi there

OK. Yes. Looked at that before. Web-site gave me a virus. Has that been fixed before I investigate again.

cheers

Masten

[phberlin]

Hi masten,

Is this XML language difficult to learn. I dont need to become a master of it. Just do the basic stuff like what I said

No, it's rather easy to learn since it's also somewhat limited (no variables, no boolean operators and so on). The documentation is rather compact, so it's a good idea to read it entirely and start with trial and error. Also you can find many examples and solutions here on the forum.

I would want it to fade in and out say 3 times in the first panorama of a virtual tour -just to get the users attention, and then stop - and not repeat again until they come back to the Virtual Tour another time.

Say you have a graphics file that holds your "click here for fullscreen" (no text supported directly by FPP, you'll have to do it via image). You would first define your image as a hotspot, for example like so:


<spot id="fullscreen_hint" url="your_image_file.png" static="1" salign="TR" align="TR" staticX="-180" alpha="0" visible="0" />


(the meaning of the specific settings can be found in the documentation that comes with FPP). Then, you would make it flash three times:


flash_image="fullscreen_hint.visible=1;
fullscreen_hint.alpha=1,400,,flash_image_2;"
flash_image_2="fullscreen_hint.alpha=0,400,,flash_image_3;"
flash_image_3="fullscreen_hint.alpha=1,400,,flash_image_4;"
flash_image_4="fullscreen_hint.alpha=0,400,,flash_image_5;"
flash_image_5="fullscreen_hint.alpha=1,400,,flash_image_6;"
flash_image_6="fullscreen_hint.alpha=0,400,,flash_image_7;"
flash_image_7="fullscreen_hint.visible=0;"

This would let your image flash the way you want to (e.g. three times: fade in during 400 miliseconds and then fade out also during 400 miliseconds). It's that easy.

The whole thing would be made a "onTransitionEnd"-event (so that it fires just after pano is loaded) and, when done, be removed on runtime so that it won't fire again. Just buy FPP and ask on the forum if you don't get it done for yourself.

Regards, Philipp

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Hi there

OK. Yes. Looked at that before. Web-site gave me a virus. Has that been fixed before I investigate again.

cheers

Masten

Brrr... chilling message with the morning coffee! :)

I had a couple of click counters on the website (to register traffic and downloads). One was a php script, the other was from an online free service, for some reason kaspersky antivirus registered one of those as being a "Trojan.Clicker.HTML.jb" virus... while it wasn't. Other antivirus programs I tried did not detect any wrongdoings (F-prot, McAfee, Norton, Trend). The counters have been completely removed and the site is re-made. No counters getting in the way of anything.

Sorry for the scare you have gotten back then, and feel free to try visiting the site again. I'll eat my hat-collection if you get some problems!

[masten]

phberlin:

OK. Great stuff and many thanks. Just what I needed to know

Tuddi:

Sorry about spoiling your coffee, but had to know before I went on it again.

cheers

Masten

[masten]

Another question:

T stitch in ptgui pro which outputs equirectangular images which I display using ptviewer.

I have to convert these to cube faces or cube stripes for fpp right? Not really sure what that is? How do I convert?
thanks

Masten

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Sorry about spoiling your coffee

No worries, my coffee is of such quality it's hard to spoil once it's brewn correctly.

Regarding a conversion from equirectangular to cube faces;

There are several programs out there that can do the conversion.

I'm sure I have read somewhere that pano2vr (http://gardengnomesoftware.com/index.php)offers a free tool for just that. Haven't found it myself though...

Another good tool (plugin for image editing programs) would be Flexify (http://www.flamingpear.com/flexify.html). (Free to try; $35.00 to buy) which has extensive output format choices. You need Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro or any other image editing program which accepts Photoshop 3.02 plugins.

There are other choices as well... surely some others can inform?

Looking forward to you joining the community!

[LepLep]

flash_image="fullscreen_hint.visible=1;
fullscreen_hint.alpha=1,400,,flash_image_2;"
flash_image_2="fullscreen_hint.alpha=0,400,,flash_image_3;"
flash_image_3="fullscreen_hint.alpha=1,400,,flash_image_4;"
flash_image_4="fullscreen_hint.alpha=0,400,,flash_image_5;"
flash_image_5="fullscreen_hint.alpha=1,400,,flash_image_6;"
flash_image_6="fullscreen_hint.alpha=0,400,,flash_image_7;"
flash_image_7="fullscreen_hint.visible=0;"

as i read somewhere on net (it was called flash golden rules) you shouldnt put objectes with alpha 0 on each other as its deadly heavy for CPU

[phberlin]

as i read somewhere on net (it was called flash golden rules) you shouldnt put objectes with alpha 0 on each other as its deadly heavy for CPU

Nothing put on each other here; just one object ("fullscreen_hint") cycling through an amount of different settings continuously (alpha=0 vs. alpha=1, with tweening).

Despite that, I've made panos with 30 and more hotspots, and everything works like a charm on average computers. Just always remember to put "pano.qualityStatic=low" before having a lot hotspot tweening :-)

Regards, Ph.

[phberlin]

T stitch in ptgui pro which outputs equirectangular images which I display using ptviewer.

I have to convert these to cube faces or cube stripes for fpp right? Not really sure what that is? How do I convert?

Me again :-) You do not absolutely need to convert your panos; FPP does also handle equirectangular images directly (so you just have one file you feed it with). However, there have been some problems with nadir and/or zenith display glitches when using equirectangular images. I personally like to convert to cube faces (http://wiki.panotools.org/Panorama_formats) rather than using stripes. (A stripe is basically just all cube faces put beside each other in one file).

If you're on a PC, I'd recommend the free DOSUP (http://www.pinlady.net/vr/#anchor3) to you. Works either as a droplet, or you put it in your SendTo-folder -- convenient and unobtrusive. You might also have a look at Erik Krause's site (http://www.erik-krause.de/index.htm?./ttt/index.htm); he has some interesting scripts there as well. Another possibility would be to use PanoCube (http://www.panoshow.com/panocubeplus.htm) to create QTVRs from your equirectangulars. (FPP also support QTVRs).

HTH, regards, Ph.

[LepLep]

correct - my mistake
its just looked very similar to another trick i used,
maybe i spend TOO much time in front of this box last weeks...

btw Ph is PhD or Phill?

[discocandy]

Another fine progam to convert from equirectangular to cubefaces is to cube
wich can be found here (http://www.tiempo-digital.com/en/software/tocube/tocube.html)

you can even give a prefix _0,_1,_2,_3,_,4_,5 or _f,_b,_l,_r,_u,_d

it reads tiff and outputs it in jpg if you want with quality settings,

he is working on a version wich implents batch conversion.

I like I very much!

[phberlin]

(...)maybe i spend TOO much time in front of this box last weeks...

Happens to me all the time :-)

btw Ph is PhD or Phill?

It stands for Philipp. We do not have PhD's in Germany, it's called Dr. (doctor) here. But I am only a M.A. (magister artium) which is one academical level below :-)

[Nate]

I use cubic converter for the Mac. Outputs cubes or qtvr. You can choose your center of the pano before breaking it apart. Works great.

[masten]

Just to say thanks for all the input here.

Ive just put my hand in my pocket and bought FPP.

Gonna start another post with requests for some help. See you there maybe

cheers

Masten