Dynamic Page Creation & expiration dates

Working with Text Files, Image Lists and more.
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rdflesher
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Dynamic Page Creation & expiration dates

Post by rdflesher »

So, I've created a spreadsheet that will hold data as well as the name of a photo to display. It will also use the Dynamic Page creation function to allow the one page to create multiple pages automatically for me. I also have a column that contains an expiration date. My select statement is :

SELECT * FROM [Expiring$] where "Date expire"-Date() > 0

and basically says if the expire date - today's date is greater than 0, then return the data. Works just fine ! My question is what if everything in in database is expired? Will it return blanks and show a messed up screen because of the lack of data or will it just skip this page and move on to the next (preferred)? I don't have any hardware yet to test it out.
Molly C
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Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:02 pm

Re: Dynamic Page Creation & expiration dates

Post by Molly C »

Dynamic pages will always produce at least one page — so when there is no data, the formatters will return empty strings.

If you would prefer not to display an empty page, you can hide the text behind an image by using a databased image. As long as the formatter used to help assemble the image path is returning valid data, the image path will be invalid — allowing the text to show through. Once the data is gone, and the formatter returns a blank string, the path will be valid.

i.e. "c:\images\NoDataImage[1:1].png"; Where the valid image path is "c:\images\NoDataImage.png"

Our clients in a meeting room setting, for example, like to display a welcome image when there are no events.

Please let me know if this makes sense and if there is anything else I can do to help.

-Mike C
rdflesher
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Re: Dynamic Page Creation & expiration dates

Post by rdflesher »

Hmmmm - clever.

I think I understand and will test it once my hardware arrives. I guess I would have to set it up so the image is the top layer and full screen so it covers other text and or images on the page, right? When it finds data, the image fails but everything else shows and visa-versa when no data is retrieved.
Molly C
Noventri Digital Signage Expert
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Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:02 pm

Re: Dynamic Page Creation & expiration dates

Post by Molly C »

rdflesher wrote:I guess I would have to set it up so the image is the top layer and full screen so it covers other text and or images on the page, right? When it finds data, the image fails but everything else shows and visa-versa when no data is retrieved.
Correct — you will want the image to be on a layer above anything you want to hide. It doesn't necessarily have to be full screen, either; it only needs to be as large as what you want to cover up.

-Mike C
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