Gears

BL Gears is an agent for Elector that reads the XPression graphics package project file and populates the Elector database with scenes to be used to create playlists for broadcast in Flow. The Elector Player can output individual scenes from playlists, as well as the playlists themselves. See Display Graphics for details on outputting scenes and playlists.

When the graphics package is ready in XPression, run Gears to update the available scenes in the Elector database. Those scenes will then be available in Flow to create playlists for broadcast.

Note: Gears provides you with the ability to make changes to your graphics package and update the Elector database and Flow with those changes.

When you create playlists of scenes in Flow, Gears updates those playlists with the latest scene data. However, Gears updates require all scene names to remain consistent between updates. If you rename any scenes in the graphics package, Gears deletes the old scene from the Elector database as well as Flow, and removes the deleted scene from all affected playlists. Gears then adds a new, renamed scene into the Elector database and Flow and you would need to add this new scene to every affected playlist manually.

Gears is installed locally on the same system running XPression Studio as it uses an instance of the Ross XPression engine to run.  

Access Gears

To access the Gears agent, run it from its desktop icon on the XPression system.

Note: The version of the Gears agent installed must match the version of XPression Studio installed. If your XPression installation is upgraded to a new version, you will need to upgrade your Gears agent as well. Contact Bannister Lake Support for assistance.

Database Connection

Gears must be connected to your Elector database. Connection and user authentication values would have been correctly configured during the initial installation. Use caution when modifying these values. Contact Bannister Lake Support for assistance.

  1. Run Gears to access the Elector Database Settings options. If Gears is already running, close it and reopen it.
  2. Modify the database connection values and settings as needed.

  3. Click OK to save your changes.

Run Gears Update

When the XPression graphics package is complete, or when changes to the graphics package have been completed, use Gears to update the available scenes in the Elector database.

Remember: Scenes added to playlists in Flow will be updated as long as the scene names have not changed. If you change scene names in XPression, that connection will be broken in the database as well as in Flow.

Click the Update Scenes button to update the database and Flow. This process may take a few minutes to complete.

When the process is complete, click OK.


 

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