Elections Player for Web

The Elections Player for Web is an output tool for Bannister Lake's Web platform that outputs graphics using Elections database elements and the Chameleon Web Server (or Chameleon Web Server). The Elections Player can be installed on any system so long as it has internet access to the Chameleon database and the Chameleon Web Server.

Using an agent called Gears for Web, the Elections Player synchronizes graphics package data from the Chameleon Designer with available election data and rundown information in the Chameleon database. The Elections Player can output individual scenes or entire rundowns of ordered, scheduled scenes created in the Elections Rundown Builder module in Flow.

The Player uses specific naming conventions for the scenes (i.e., templates) in the Web graphics package in tandem with object tags that are associated with each of the scene types to output the desired election results. For more information on the scene and object tag conventions, view the following page: Elections Player Tags.

Access Elections Player for Web

To access the Elections Player for Web, run it from its desktop icon on the system.

Flow and Database Connection

You need to connect the Elections Player to your Chameleon database using both Flow user credentials and MySQL database user authentication. For Flow, any valid user credentials will suffice. The MySQL database 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. To modify the Flow credentials or the MySQL database connection values, select File > Preferences.

2. Modify the Flow credential values and/or the MySQL database connection values and settings as needed.

3. Click on the Test Connection button to test the connection values.

4. Click OK to save your changes.

Elections Player Logs

The Elections Player system log is available for troubleshooting purposes. Select Help > Show Current Logs. You can also clear the log file by selecting Help > Clear Current Logs.

Take Election Results to Air

Before you are able to show any election results on air, you have to decide how to setup the elections show package. The most common way is to setup display content that is intended to occupy most of the screen (fullscreen scenes) using at least 1 of the Rundown tabs in the UI shown below. The lower third content can be setup using another of the Rundown tabs.

  

Using the Rundown Tab

The Rundown tabs are used to display elections rundown lists. These lists are composed and managed using the Election Rundown Builder web module within Flow.

Elections Rundown lists are grouped into 'Bins'.  The most common usage for a bin is to identify who created the bin and/or what the rundown lists in the bin are about.

• Click on the Bin drop-down list and select from any of the available bins.
• Click on the Rundown drop-down list and select from the available rundowns.

The grid should now show all the members of the rundown list as they were assembled in the Elections Rundown Builder.

Note that the contents of the Bins and their Rundowns, as well, as the items of the selected Rundown can be refreshed from the database by pressing on the 'Update Rundowns' button. The update can also be done periodically by enabling the 'Auto-Refresh Rundowns every N seconds' option. 

Rundown Information Panel

The Item Information Panel shows the information that was set into the selected rundown item.  Depending on the item's scene type, the list of candidates shown are either set using the Elections Rundown Builder module in Flow (for a 'Choice' scene)  or are obtained from the database directly in descending order based on the candidates' vote count (for a 'Contest' scene). To learn more about scene types, go to the table on Scene Names in Elections Player Tags.

The Rundown Information Panel can be hidden if so desired. To hide the panel, click on the 'Hide Information Panel' button. To show the information panel again, click on the same button.

Rundown Items Grid

The Rundown Item grid shows the items that are contained in the selected Rundown. To select an item, click any where on the row that defines the item's contents. An arrow on the leftmost column will appear indicating that the item is selected. The cell which was clicked on will be shown in an orange highlight.

The size of the thumbnails and also the heights of the item rows can be changed by selecting a different value for 'Row Size' in the drop-down list. 

Rundown grid columns and their meaning:

• 'Output' - By default, an item is enabled for output when it is added in the Elections Rundown Builder in Flow.
  • The item can be disabled by left-clicking on the 'Output' checkbox which will clear the check mark indicator.
  • A disabled item will be skipped over when using the 'Play Rundown' mode (see the topic on 'Rundown Controls Panel' below).
  • Note that items are disabled only for so long as the Elections Player is running. Once the Elections Player is shutdown or restarted, the 'Output' settings for the items are re-enabled once more.
  • To re-enable an item, click on the checkbox once more.
  • Tip: You can enable or disable all Rundown items at once by left-clicking on the 'Output' column header.
• 'Status' - Indicates whether the item is off-air, on-air or is cued up.
• 'Type' - Indicates what the item's scene type is, followed by the name of the scene. 
• 'Contest' - Indicates what the Event, Office and District that are being contested for.
• 'Content' - The first part indicates what page will be shown when taken to air and how many candidates can be shown at a time. The next part shows all the candidates that are in the contest. If there are non-zero vote data, the candidates will be sorted in descending order based on their vote count.
• 'Thumbnail' - Shows a thumbnail of the scene as generated by Chameleon Designer Studio. If the Live Thumbnail feature is enabled in the Preference settings, these thumbnails will be replaced every so often with ones generated using actual data available at the time of generation.

Rundown Controls Panel

The Rundown Controls Panel hosts a number of controls and buttons that are used to manage the play out of the items in the Rundown. 

Controls (from left to right):

• 'Cue Selected' button - Used to cue up an individual Rundown item. This prepares the item for output by filling in scene with the current elections data from the database at the time of the cueing.
  • This button is only available if cueing is enabled for the Rundown in the Preference settings. See the topic on Elections Player for Web#Preferences for more details.
  • First, select the item that you want to be cued.
  • Then, click on the 'Cue Selected' button.
  • If the cueing operation is successful, the 'Status' LED for the item in the grid will change to show a yellow LED  or an orange LED  if the item is currently on-air.
  • Taking the cued item to air will show the scene with the elections data that was setup during the cueing operation.
• 'Take' button - Used to show individual Rundown item on output.
  • First, select the item in the Rundown grid.
  • Then, click on the 'Take' button. Note that the item's 'Output' status is ignored for this operation.
  • If the Take operation is successful, the 'Status' LED for the item in the grid will change to show a red LED. 
  • You can also use the hotkeys listed below the button (the Numpad+ key in the example diagram above).
• 'Clear' button - Used to clear any Rundown items that are showing on output. Also stops the 'Play Rundown' mode if active.
• On Air LED - The colour of the LED indicates whether any item in the Rundown is showing in the output or not.
  • Appears black if nothing is showing. 
  • Appears red if an item is showing. 
  • Note that there is also a squarish LED on the Rundown tab next to the label which also reflect the state of the On Air LED.
• 'Enable Update Scene if Taking same scene' checkbox.
  • If checked, playing back to back items that have the same scene will cause the Chameleon Web Server to use an update transition for the output change instead of setting the new scene online and taking the old scene offline.
• 'Play Rundown' button - Used to play all the items with their 'Output' status enabled in the Rundown one at a time, starting from the selected item.
  • The player will take the selected item to air and move the selection down to the next enabled item in the Rundown.
  • The button will change it's background colour and label to 'Stop Rundown' . Pressing the button again will stop the next item from being taken to air but the item currently on-air remains on-air.
  • After the number of seconds indicated in the 'Play every N seconds' control (6 seconds in the example above), the player will take the selected item to air.
  • If the looping button is enabled, i.e., showing with an orange background , the player will loop back to the top of the Rundown after playing the last item in the list.
  • If the looping button is not enabled, i.e., showing with the regular blue background , the player will stop at the last item in list.

Using the Fullscreen Scenes Tab

The Fullscreen tab is used for a couple of things. Firstly, you can set a common background for all scenes taken to air including the ones in any of the Rundown tabs and in the Fullscreen Scenes. The other thing is that you can use the Fullscreen Scenes as a means of taking any scene in an ad hoc basis or for testing out each of the scenes with data during the preparation stages of an elections show.

IP Commands

The Elections Player can also optionally respond to commands sent over IP. This feature is supported in Elections Player for Web version 6.0.0.60 or later.

To enable this feature, please see the topic on IP Command Settings.

When this feature is enabled and connected to a command server, the following display should appear on the status bar at the bottom of the main UI (highlighted by the red rectangle). If the command server is not available or the Player fails to connect to it, a black LED will be displayed instead. The Player will continue attempting to connect to the specified server every few seconds.

Note that the commands only control play out and previews for Rundown items. If the Rundown is in auto-play mode i.e., the 'Play Rundown' button has been pressed for a particular Rundown, IP Commands received that target the Rundown will be ignored.

The following table shows the list of commands that the Player will respond to. Note that for all the following commands in the table, the '#' symbol indicates the Rundown number and should be a value between 1 and 4. The '%' symbol specifies the item number and should be a value that is between 1 and the total number of items in the specified Rundown. The '%' symbol can also be used to specify an item count depending on the command.

Preferences

A number of features and options for the Elections Player can be modified using the Preferences dialog. The dialog has 4 different tabs:

• Database & Templates Settings tab,
• General Settings tab,
• Live Thumbnails tab, and the
• Chameleon Designer Settings tab.

Database & Templates Settings Tab

This left portion of this tab is used for setting the Flow login and MySQL database access credentials. The right portion of the tab is used for setting the Headshots and Logo Graphics folders.

• For the Headshots folder, specify or browse for an existing folder which the Elections Player will use to cache the headshot images from the database. These headshot images are used to fill in the candidate headshots in the Rundown items or Fullscreen scenes.
• For the Logo Graphics folder, specify or browse (...) for an existing folder within which should contain Party logo image files.

General Settings Tab

There are various options in this tab that control the format of some of the output as well as some options to enable, disable or modify some of the Player features.

• Log Debug Messages:
  • if enabled, additional messages are logged.
  • Only enable this setting if directed to do so by the Bannister Lake support team. The additional debug messages can help track down any issues that may have arisen during operation.
• Contest Settings:
  • Show Incumbents first if 0 votes - This option affects output. For Contest scenes where there are no votes registered yet, the incumbent candidate is listed first followed by the other candidates sorted in ascending order of their last names.
  • Show Area Identifiers first - This option affects the District displays in the Player UI. if enabled, shows the ID of the Area/District first before the name of the Area/District. This can be useful in the Fullscreen Scenes group when attempting to locate a district by it's ID in the Contest drop-down control when a Contest scene is selected.
• OTHER Party Settings:
  • These settings affect output of Party names and abbreviations for non-main parties.
  • Group Non-main Parties as OTHER - This will group any non-main party into a single 'OTHER' party group. For Party scenes output, all non-main party values will be lumped together and displayed as belonging to the 'OTHER' party.
  • Set Non-main Party Candidates as OTHER - For Choice and Contest scenes, any candidate that belongs to a non-main party will be displayed as belonging to the 'OTHER' party on output.
  • OTHER Name & Code - By default, the 'OTHER' party's full name is 'OTHER' and it's code (abbreviation) is 'OTH'. Modify these values to suit.
• Rundown Hotkey Settings:
  • These settings affect what the hotkeys for the associated Take, Clear and Cue actions are. They also affect the labelling of the hotkeys beneath each of their associated button controls.
  • Take hotkey - Default is the Numpad+ key.
  • Clear hotkey - Default is the Numpad- key.
  • Cue hotkey - Default is the Numpad. key.
  • Other hotkeys that can be assigned are: Enter, Numpad/, Numpad*, Ctrl Numpad+, Ctrl Enter, Ctrl Numpad-, Ctrl Numpad/, Ctrl Numpad. and Ctrl Numpad*.
• Rundown Cue Settings:
  • These settings affect the Rundown UI. Enabling any option shows the 'Cue Selected' button and hotkey label for the associated Rundown tab.
  • Enable the setting for the particular Rundown tab that you want cueing support for. Cueing a Rundown item is useful if the particular item's scene takes a long time to setup with elections data (e.g., like a map).
• Vote Percent Sign Settings:
  • This setting affects the output of the % sign for percentage values like polls reporting or vote percentage.
  • The default option is Auto Detect. This means that if a text object in a scene contains text that has a '%' symbol in it, the output will also contain the '%' symbol.
  • The Never option means that the % symbol will never be shown on output.
  • The Always option means that the % symbol will always be shown on output.
• Number Formats:
  • These settings affect the output of Seats for a Party, the Vote counts in a contest and the Poll counts.
  • There are only 2 options available for showing count numbers.
    1. Numbers without commas as group separators. E.g., 1000000.
    2. Numbers with commas as group separators. E.g., 1,000,000.
• Custom Candidate Settings:
  • These settings affect the output for the Candidate names when using custom tags. See the information on the '^choice.custom' tag found in Elections Player Tags.
  • Elected - the specified text will be used as part of the candidate's name where indicated in the custom format string. By default, the string value is '[e]'.
  • Incumbent - the specified text will be used as part of the candidate's name where indicated in the custom format string. By default, the string value is '[i]'.
  • Acclaimed - the specified text will be used as part of the candidate's name where indicated in the custom format string. By default, the string value is '[a]'.

Live Thumbnails Tab

The options on this tab are used to enable the Live Thumbnails feature and to control the frequency with which the thumbnails are updated. You will also need to setup an existing folder for the Elections Player to save the thumbnails into.

Chameleon Server Settings Tab

The options on this tab are for setting up the outputs of the Chameleon Web Server that will be used by the Elections Player. An Output, in this case, is synonymous with a Chameleon Web Server instance.

Note that Output1 must exist whereas all other Outputs are optional.

In order to use Preview, the user must assign an Output solely for the purposes of previewing scene output.

Likewise, if the Live Thumbnails feature is enabled, an Output specifically for generating thumbnails must be assigned. Note that for thumbnails to be generated, the Web page for the Output must be showing on a Web Browser.

TIP: Although Chameleon Web Server can theoretically support a large number of instances, it is best to limit the number of instances to 3 for performance purposes. With this in mind, if you want to use more than 3 different Outputs, it is best to use another system where it is also running it's own Chameleon Web Server with one or more instances.

IP Command Settings Tab

The options on this tab are used to enable the IP Command feature and for setting up the connection to a Command Server.