Creating a broadcast for election day includes defining what scenes you want to show, in what order, and how you want various playlists to be collected together in Flow as well as the Elector Player (Classic Player) for quick and easy access.

You can manage broadcast content collection in Flow. All changes you make to playlists are saved immediately.

 From the Home page, select  or click Broadcast Control > Playlist Builder.

Tips and Features

Copy Content Between Scenes

• Drag content from one scene and drop it in an appropriate slot in a second scene to copy the content, where supported.

• Drag and drop content on top of existing content to overwrite it.

Quickly Create Complete Playlists

• You can drag a region or watchlist onto a riding scene to automatically duplicate that scene for reach riding in the region/list.

• If the scene has 1 or more captions - the name of the regions/list will be applied to the first caption. If more than one caption exists and there is one named Title then it will be applied to the Title caption.

Apply a Candidate to a Riding Scene

• You can drag a candidate to a riding scene and then that candidates riding will be applied.

Moving Candidates

• Drag and drop content on top of existing content to overwrite it.

• If you drag a candidate onto another candidate in the same scene - they will swap locations

• If you drag a candidate from one scene onto a candidate slot in a second scene - the dragged candidate will be copied into the second scene.

Use any content for captions

• You can drag any content type to a caption field. It will apply the visible name/text of the dragged item to the caption.

Content Slots Too Small?

• If you are finding the content regions too small to drag and drop with you can try enabling the Value Magnifier option. Simply check the box this option at the bottom of the playlist. It will reload and now the selected value will be made larger automatically. 

Populate Playlists from other modules

• You can add scenes to playlists from 

  • Riding Results

  • Results Summary

  • Interesting Events

  • Dashboard - Riding Watchlists section

Before You Begin

How does the scene list get filled? Before you attempt to create bins and playlists of scenes, an agent called Gears is run for every change to the XPression graphics package. Gears reads the XPression graphics package project file and populates the Elector database with scene information. When you run Gears, Flow will then display the scene information you need to build playlists, and group those playlists into bins.

Specify a Bin

You must specify a bin container before you can start managing scenes into playlists. Think of a bin as a container that organizes groups of playlists. Playlists are the collections of scenes you want to play out to air.

Create a new bin

In the Bins section, enter the name of a new Bin in the drop down box and press the ENTER key.

The bin will be created in your assigned content group.

Open

Select an existing bin

In the Bins section, select a Bin from the list.

Open

Edit Bin Name and Content Group

1. After selecting a bin - click Edit.

2. Modify the bin name and content group as needed.

3. Click Save to save your changes.

Remove Bins

1. Click Remove.

2. Click OK to confirm when prompted or Cancel if you want to keep the bin.

Specify a Playlist

Playlists are collections of scenes you want to play out to air. Each playlists is part of a collection of playlists called a bin.

Create a new playlist

In the Playlists section, enter the name of a new Playlist in the dropdown text box and press the ENTER key or the TAB key.

The playlist will be added to the selected Bin.

Select an existing playlist

In the Playlists section, select a Playlist from the list.

Edit playlist name

1. Select the playlist and then click Edit.

   1. The drop down list will change to an editable text box. 

2. Modify the playlist name as needed.

3. Click Save or press the ENTER key to save your changes.

Remove playlists

Removing a playlist also removes all associated scene setup and configuration.
Removing a playlist is a permanent action that cannot be undone once complete.

1. Click the Remove button to the right of the playlist dropdown..

2. Click OK to confirm.

Manage Playlists

All changes you make to playlists are saved immediately.

Add scenes to a playlist

Option 1: using drag-n-drop

To add a scene to the playlist, expand the scene categories, and drag scenes to the Scene List.

Option 2: using Add Scene button

After selecting the scene by clicking on it you can add it to the end of the playlist by pressing the Add Scene to Playlist button

Add Scene Content

Option 1: using drag-n-drop

As you add scenes to the playlist, empty content spots are highlighted in yellow.

Expand the content categories, and drag content to the scene as needed.

Option 2: using "Quick Add" button

You can add Riding and Candidate boards to the playlist with some initial content by 

1. Select the Riding or Candidate scene

2. Select a riding or candidate from the list of content options

3. Press the Add Scene + Content to Playlist button.

NOTES:

Riding scene + Riding => 1 riding scene added with selected riding

Riding scene + Candidate => 1 riding scene added with candidates riding

Riding scene + Region => A riding scene added for each riding in the region and caption 1 defaults** to region name

Riding scene + Watchlist => A riding scene added for each riding in the watchlist and caption 1 defaults** to watchlist name

** If more than one caption exists and there is one named Title then it will be applied to the Title caption.

Add User-defined Content

Option 1: Content List Only

Enter user-defined content and click Add User Content to add it to the list of content to use at a future time.

The content is added to the User Defined content category if it's not already in the list. 

Option 2: A selected caption in 1 scene

To apply content to the selected caption field in a playlist scene

• Enter user-defined content in the text box.

• Choose the Selected Caption option

• Press the Add User Content button.

The content is added to the User Defined content category if it's not already in the list.

Option 3: A caption for all scenes

To apply content to a caption for all scenes currently in the playlist

• Enter user-defined content in the text box.

• Choose the appropriate caption option from the list such as All Caption 1

• Press the Add button.

The content is added to the User Defined content category if it's not already in the list.

Option 4: Drag and drop

You can drag and drop user-defined content to scenes like any other content.

Drag and drop content on top of existing content to overwrite it.

Delete User-Defined Content

Right-click on a user-defined content item and click Delete.

Update playlist structure

You can manage the playlist structure as follows:

Scenes

• Drag and drop scenes to reorder them in the playlist.

• Right-click on a scene in the playlist and select Remove Scene.
  
  

Content

• Drag and drop content to copy it from scene to scene, where supported.

• Drag and drop content on top of existing content to overwrite it.

• If you drag a candidate onto another candidate in the same scene - they will swap locations

• If you drag a candidate onto a candidate slot in a different (target) scene - the dragged candidate will be copied into the target scene

Refresh bins and playlists

Click Reload Drop Downs and Playlist Contents at any time to see the latest bins and playlists data.

Options

The playlist build page provides some options that you can quicky set as a user while working on the playlist page.

Allow Duplicate Ridings

If you want to be able to use the same riding more than once in the selected playlist - then you will want to enable this option. When it is not enabled you will be shown a message telling you when a riding could not be added because it already existed in the list.

Use Value Magnifier

Use this option to make the content slots in the playlist bigger to make it easier to drop content on them or to read them. When this is enabled then the scene item that is hovered on by the mouse will be made larger until the focus is moved to another one. 

Display Scene Project Path

There are a couple options that control how much of the path is displayed.

Example: first image shows the full project path being displayed

vs (path with prefix of Provincial_AB removed - achieved by setting the preference for Remove Scene Project Prefix to ‘Provincial_AB’ and using the Show non-default path option)

vs (no path displayed)

Show the Full Path for All Scenes

When checked ALL scenes will display their full project path. 
This can be useful for troubleshooting when a particular scene is not displaying as expected. This allows you to confirm the project the scene came from to correctly investigate.

It can also be useful when multiple projects are used and the scene names might be the same or similar.

Show Non-Default Paths for Scenes

When checked it will display the portion of the project file path that doesn't match the default prefix set in the System Preferences ("Remove Scene Project Prefix")

This is useful for identifying scenes that belong to a specific project file when more than one project is in use.

Related System Preferences

Playlist Builder > Default Format

Identifies the default bin format selected when using the Playlist Builder. It must be one of "XPression" and "Web".

Default: XPression 

Playlist Builder > Remove Scene Project Prefix

The string prefix that you want to hide when displaying the scene project names in the Playlist Builder (the default project path).

Default: (blank)