Gears for XPression

Owned by Georg Hentsch
Last updated: Jun 24, 2020 by Danny Ljubisic
6 min read

Gears for XPression is an agent for Chameleon that manages the XPression graphics package projects and populates the Chameleon database with information that is used by the Branding Player for XPression, the Elections Player for XPression and the Ticker Player for XPression.

When a new XPression graphics project is ready or an existing XPression project has been modified, run Gears for XPression to update the available scenes in the Chameleon database. Those scenes will then be available in Flow to create Branding assets, Elections Player or Ticker Player rundowns for broadcast. You can also delete old projects that are no longer needed.

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

All templates or XPF projects must be named the same name as it’s subfolder. Example: “D:\ChameleonProjects\Hello World\” folder must use “Hello World.XPF” in order for Gears to find the project.

Access Gears for XPression

To access the Gears for XPression 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. Check the XPression version that the agent was built for located in the status bar at the bottom of the main UI. 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

On launching Gears for XPression, you will be shown the Preferences dialog first. This dialog will allow you to set or confirm the settings that are needed to connect to your Chameleon 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. Modify the Flow credential values and/or the MySQL database connection values and settings as needed.

  2. Click OK to save your changes.

Gears for XPression UI

Gears for XPression is a 3-in-1 tool that allows managing of XPression Projects for Branding, Elections or Ticker purposes. As such, there are 3 nearly identical tabs that you can work with depending on which Chameleon product that you are dealing with.

Content Group

You may need to change the Content Group that you will be working with in Gears. By default, the Global Content Group is selected. Click on the drop-down and choose the Content Group that you want to work with.

Branding Tab

This tab is used for managing the Branding templates and logos that will be used in Chameleon Branding. In this tab, there are 3 vertical sub-tabs. These are the ‘Update Templates', the ‘Delete Templates’ and the ‘Logos’ sub-tabs.

Branding ‘Update Templates’ sub-tab

Used for adding or updating Branding XPression scenes in the Chameleon Database.

  1. Make sure that the correct Content Group is selected so that the scene information is added or updated to the appropriate Content Group.

  2. Select the Templates directory on the system that contains the XPression Projects for Branding using the browse button (…).

  3. The grid control in the top left part of the ‘Update Templates’ sub-tab will show the projects that are in the Templates folder.

  4. Select one or more projects in the grid that you wish to update by clicking in the checkbox beside the project’s name.

  5. Click on the ‘Update' button to process the selected projects.

  6. When completed, a list of scenes will populate the ‘Templates Added/Updated’ grid at the bottom of the tab.

Branding ‘Delete Templates’ sub-tab

Used for cleaning up old Branding XPression Projects in the Chameleon Database.

  1. Press the ‘Refresh’ button to ensure that the latest list of all Branding Projects are shown in the grid. Note that this list contains all projects belonging to all Content Groups that the Flow User entered in the Preferences can access.

  2. Select the projects that you no longer need by clicking in the checkboxes.

  3. Click on the ‘Delete Templates’ button.

Branding ‘Logos’ sub-tab

Used for updating Branding logos that are available in the Logos directory.

Elections Tab

This tab is used for managing the Elections scenes that will be used by the Election Rundown Builder module in Flow and the Elections Player for XPression application. In this tab, there are 2 vertical sub-tabs. These are the ‘Update Scenes’ and ‘Delete Projects’ sub-tabs.

Elections ‘Update Scenes’ sub-tab

Used for adding or updating Elections XPression scenes in the Chameleon Database.

  1. Make sure that the correct Content Group is selected so that the scene information is added or updated to the appropriate Content Group.

  2. Select the Projects directory on the system that contains the XPression Projects for Elections using the browse button (…).

  3. The grid control in the top left part of the ‘Update Scenes’ sub-tab will show the projects that are in the Projects folder.

  4. Select one or more projects in the grid that you wish to update by clicking in the checkbox beside the project’s name.

  5. Click on the ‘Update' button to process the selected projects.

  6. When completed, a list of scenes will populate the ‘Scenes Added/Updated’ grid at the bottom of the tab.

Elections ‘Delete Projects’ sub-tab

Used for cleaning up old Elections XPression Projects in the Chameleon Database.

  1. Press the ‘Refresh’ button to ensure that the latest list of all Elections Project Files are shown in the grid. Note that this list contains all projects belonging to all Content Groups that the Flow User entered in the Preferences can access.

  2. Select the project files that you no longer need by clicking in the checkboxes.

  3. Click on the ‘Delete Projects’ button.

Ticker Tab

Used to manage the Ticker XPression Projects.

Ticker ‘Update Projects’ sub-tab

Used for adding or updating Ticker XPression projects in the Chameleon Database.

  1. Make sure that the correct Content Group is selected so that the scene information is added or updated to the appropriate Content Group.

  2. Select the Projects directory on the system that contains the XPression Projects for Ticker using the browse button (…).

  3. The project grid control will will show the projects that are found in the Projects folder.

  4. Select a project row to view the Scene and Zone topic details that were loaded from the selected project.

  5. Select one or more projects in the grid that you wish to update by clicking in the checkbox beside the project’s name.

  6. Double Click on the ‘Publish Name’ and ‘Publish Details’ cells in the project grid to edit the published name or details for the project that will be used for the publish operation.

  7. Enable the check box for the projects that should be published and click on the ‘Publish' button to publish the selected projects to the Chameleon Flow server.

  8. When completed, a message box will appear showing how many scenes and zones were updated for each project.

Ticker‘Delete Projects’ sub-tab

Used for cleaning up old Ticker XPression Projects in the Chameleon Database.

  1. Press the ‘Refresh’ button to ensure that the latest list of all Ticker Projects are shown in the grid. Note that this list contains all projects belonging to all Content Groups that the Flow User entered in the Preferences can access.

  2. Select the project files that you no longer need by clicking in the check boxes.

  3. Click on the ‘Delete Projects’ button.