Groups and Dataset Configuration
The default groups and datasets provided with the Public Kiosk setup may work well for your venue, but are easily changed to better suit your intended SOS viewers. The Public Kiosk defines which groups and datasets are displayed by using standard SOS playlists that reside under /shared/sos/kiosk/playlists on the SOS machine. General information about SOS playlists is available in the Playlist Format Reference.
Organization of Groups and Datasets in Playlists
Permalink to Organization of Groups and Datasets in Playlistskiosk.sos
Permalink to kiosk.sosThe kiosk.sos playlist has include lines for all the playlists that define each group. The order they appear in the kiosk.sos playlist is how they are displayed in the kiosk UI.
groups Directory
Permalink to groups DirectoryThe groups/ directory contains all the group playlists included in kiosk.sos. Each group playlist has include lines for each of the datasets that appear in the kiosk when that group’s button is selected.
Customizing Groups, Datasets, and Graphics
Permalink to Customizing Groups, Datasets, and GraphicsIf this is the first time you are customizing your Public Kiosk groups or datasets, it is necessary to transfer the default kiosk playlist files to your SOS machine from the kiosk machine using the controls in the FTP tab of the Admin UI. It is important to note that this step should only be done the first time as a starting point for you to make your changes and will not be needed again.
Decide how you will be editing the kiosk text files. Currently the recommended approach is to use a standard text editor such as vim or gedit. In the future you may be able to use other tools such as the Visual Playlist Editor to do your edits.
Edit the kiosk.sos File
Permalink to Edit the kiosk.sos FileYou can change the value of the icons
property if you’d like to replace the
NOAA logo with one of your own. For best results, use a size similar to the NOAA
logo’s dimensions, which is 260x260 pixels. Copy your logo image file into the
/shared/sos/kiosk/images/ directory and change the icons
value to
match its path.
Edit, remove, or add include
lines to the dataset groups you plan to use in
the kiosk. Each include line refers to a group playlist that will appear in the
public UI represented with a rectangular group button. The groups will appear in
the kiosk in the same order (top-to-bottom) as they are listed in the
kiosk.sos file.
Create New or Edit Existing Groups
Permalink to Create New or Edit Existing GroupsTo create a new group, start by copying an existing group playlist file to a new name. The filename stem (e.g., “air” for air.sos) will be used as the group name in the kiosk.
For each group playlist, edit the value of the icons
property if you wish to
change the image for that group’s button in the public UI. There are a number of
image files you may choose to use located in
/shared/sos/kiosk/images/groups/. You may also create your own, but
any images you use should have pixel dimensions about 500x417 and have empty
space at the bottom for where the group name will be displayed. We also suggest
that you copy your image files into the
/shared/sos/kiosk/images/groups/ directory.
For each group playlist, add, remove, or modify include
lines for each dataset
you plan to use in the kiosk. Each include line refers to a dataset that will
appear in the public UI represented with a circular thumbnail button. The
datasets will appear in the kiosk in the same order (left-to-right) as they are
listed in the group files.
The sphere frame image that is displayed on the trackball control for each dataset listed by an include line is usually derived directly from the dataset’s image data itself, but there are a number of different ways that this image may be generated for use in the kiosk. Here are the available options in priority order of precedence:
- If the
icons
keyword is set immediately following the dataset’s include line in the group playlist, the trackball image will be set to the file path for any existing image file anywhere on the SOS machine. This option overrides any other source for the trackball image. Note that this is not the standard use of the icons keyword in an SOS dataset playlist - For a movie file or directory of images, if the
stopframe
keyword is set immediately following the dataset’sinclude
line in the group playlist, the trackball image is extracted using the frame index specified. This keyword is ignored for a single frame image dataset. Note that this is not the standard use of thestopframe
keyword in an SOS dataset playlist - If there is a sphere_frame.jpg or sphere_frame.png or sphere_frame.tiff file located in the dataset’s media sub-directory (where the thumbnails are located), that will be used as the trackball image. NOAA supplies these as part of some datasets and any site may specify these files for their own datasets installed under the /shared/sos/media/site-custom directory
- The default option is to use the image itself as the trackball for single frame datasets or by extracting the middle frame number as the index into the dataset’s movie file or directory of images. In the latter case, for example, if a dataset has 200 frames, then frame 100 would be used to generate the trackball image
Test Your Playlists
Permalink to Test Your PlaylistsTest your kiosk playlists on SOS with the FileOpen Playlist menu item in the SOS Stream GUI, by loading the file /shared/sos/kiosk/playlist/kiosk.sos. Check for any dataset loading errors that indicate invalid include paths to the datasets you selected and correct them in the group playlists.
Transfer Playlists to the Kiosk
Permalink to Transfer Playlists to the KioskVerify that the directory /shared/sos/kiosk exists on your SOS system. If it doesn’t, you can use the FTP tab of the Admin UI to transfer the default kiosk-related files from the kiosk to the SOS machine. You may also need to install and configure a simple FTP server on the SOS machine to handle the FTP file transfers between the two systems. See Appendix B for instructions on how to set up your FTP server.
Run the media2kiosk command line utility in a terminal window (it is located in the /shared/sos/bin directory of your SOS installation). This program automatically generates the file hierarchy used by the kiosk for groups and datasets. It automatically names the groups after the playlist filenames used to define them, such as air for the group playlist /shared/sos/kiosk/playlists/groups/air.sos. It also generates files the kiosk uses to show each dataset in the public UI (Appendix A has a full description of the kiosk file hierarchy). By default, the dataset names and descriptions are obtained from the SOS Data Catalog. The descriptions tend to be longer than desirable for a kiosk user, so there is a way to replace those with your own text. This is done with the same approach as for translating English to other languages, which is covered in the next section.
Transfer the kiosk dataset and group file hierarchy using the controls in the FTP tab of the Admin UI.
Restart the kiosk software (using the desktop or from the Start menu) and verify that you are satisfied with how your changes appear in the public UI, including group names and button images and dataset names, descriptions, and button images. Test the kiosk with SOS to make sure all the datasets load and display properly.
Repeat these steps until the kiosk is configured the way you want it.