Hi Ollie

I have an idea that Screen Monkey could be the perfect presentation slave to be controlled from a Show Control system, or perhaps some custom software that makes a show up on the fly, maybe like at an event that you can send messages via SMS etc.

Theres two parts to this problem.  The first is that Screen Monkey would need to have the ability to do everything it does now exposed as an API, so that another "thing" could populate the panel slots, start stuff, delete panels etc.  The second bit is probably making that happen over a network interface, as you would at least want the option to do this from several machines.

I've seen talk of "interactions" and of a "sdk"; what is the current status of these things?

Cheers, David, a/k/a dbuckley on the Blue Room.

Hi Ollie

I use the show controller PCStage to run all my shows these days, and there is a support mailing list for the product.  PCStage has a plugin entitled MediaSync which enables one to play video or music clips on a twin monitor setup.  For what it is intended to do, it is perfect.

However, sometimes MediaSync isn't the answer.  A while ago I needed to run "visuals" for an awards type show, which meant I (realistically) needed a PowerPoint presentation, but I wasn't willing to compromise on single point of control, so I wrote some stuff that enabled me to control PowerPoint from PCStage, and all was well.  See http://www.davidbuckley.name/pcs/powerpoint

But, to be brutally honest, ScreenMonkey as a presentation tool wipes the floor with PowerPoint, so it would make an excellent presentation slave to PCStage.  If only it could be controlled from PCStage, or, less selfishly, by other programs in general.

All this came to a head really when a fellow PCStage user, Frank Jensen, had an unusual request: he want to create presentations programatically for a museum interactive exhibition: "Thats why I was thinking of making a small piece of software, that could write the PCS [PCStage cuelist file] file directly, loading the timestamps, file and movienames from a database. In theory it could be 5 different shows a day, 180 days a year - totally close to 1.000 different shows - made by schoolchildren by simply uploading pictures, sounds, movies and a timetable when to play what. Converting this into a PCStage show (or powerpoint) must be a fully automated task."

And that is when I thought: custom script + PCStage + ScreenMonkey = What Frank needs.

So, what I would suggest is a TCP/IP (or preferably UDP, it makes life much simpler) interface that accepts text commands that can substitute for all operator commands.  Thus one can simply instruct ones show controller (or a custom bit of software) to issue text commands over UDP, and ScreenMonkey does what its told.  In Franks case he can load all the required clips, and then show them and transition them as required from the show controller.

So, thats where I'm coming from; dopes this sound like the sort of thing you are interested in supporting?

Boo!!!

Any movement on a UDPversion...?