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Introduction
The message board control program is used to create a different variety of
text messages and graphics for the message board. Once the desired messages
are entered, all the data can be transmitted to the display to start the
show.
User
Interface Description
The
message board control program has two main windows:
1. The
simulated LED screen window
This
window is used to display the LED screen exactly the same way it will be
displayed on the actual LED screen.
2. The
text messages composer window
This
window consists of the following controls listed in order from top to
bottom, and from left to right.
1. Style
·
message style
·
style properties
2.
Font
·
font name
·
font size
3.
Alignment
·
vertical
alignment
·
horizontal
alignment
4.
Pause
5.
Picture
Manager
6.
Brightness
Control
7.
Text Editor
8.
Schedule
·
time
·
date
9.
Control Panel
1.
Style
Some of the styles, for example
left scroll, have a selection in the properties drop down box. If a style
doesn’t have a property, then a ‘No Properties’ message will be displayed in
the drop down box.
2.
Font
There are different kinds of
fonts that may be selected using the font selection drop down box. Some of
the fonts have multiple choices of size selection. If the selected font is
bigger than the size of the screen, no text will be displayed on simulated
LED screen.
3.
Alignment
There are two different types
of alignment, horizontal and vertical. Each type of alignment has three
different choices; left, right, none (horizontal), and top, bottom, none
(vertical)
4.
Pause
A pause of one tenth of a
second is how long the selected text style will stay on the screen before
the next message appears.
5.
Picture
Manger
The Picture Manager is used to
send .BMP graphic files to the message board. The format of the graphic
file is a monochrome .BMP file with a resolution equal to the message
board’s screen resolution. In this case it would be 96x16 pixels. The .BMP
format file can be created in any graphics program, for example Microsoft
Paint.
6.
Brightness
Control
Each schedule can have its own
brightness setting. There are 8 levels of brightness available.
7.
Text Editor
The editor box is used to enter
message text. The text entered into the editor box may contain several
lines, as long as it will fit on the actual screen. To start a new line,
just press the ‘Enter’ key. Text in the edit box is justified according to
the alignment settings. The edited text is immediately displayed in the
simulated LED screen window. If the selected font size doesn’t fit on the
screen, the text will not be visible. To edit a message, a new message must
be created first using the ‘New’ button from the control panel.
8.
Schedule
The message board has 8
different schedules. Each schedule has its own text messages and brightness
control. The schedule starts from the date and time specified in the edit
boxes. If the date is set to all zeros, the schedule will run every day at
the time specified. In the upper part of the window there are 8 tabs
(Schedule 1, Schedule 2, etc.) which are used to switch between the
schedules.
9.
Control
Panel
The control panel contains
buttons to navigate through the messages and also to manipulate them.
The top two buttons (arrows)
are used to switch between the messages. The current message number is
displayed in the box called ‘Message’.
The ‘New’ button is used to
create a new message.
The ‘Insert’ button is used to
insert a new message between existing messages.
The ‘Delete’ button is used to
delete the current message.
The ‘Del. all’ button is used
to delete all the messages from the current schedule.
The ‘Test’ button is used to
show the display in the simulated LED screen window.
The ‘Upload’ button is used to
transfer the messages to the message board and start the display.
The ‘Display ID’ box is used to
select the address of the message board where the data should be transmitted
to. The address range is 1 to 255.
Menus
1.
File menu
The file menu is used to store
and load messages to the file. The choices are:
‘Open’, to load previously stored messages
‘Save’, to save existing messages to a file
‘Save As’, to save existing messages to a file with a name
specified by the user
‘Exit’, to quit the program
2.
COM menu
This
menu is used to select the COM port. The COM (serial) port used to
communicate with the message board should be selected here. |
