Jürgen Bäurle

The new screen transitions and control animations of the Peakboard Digital Signage System

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0200

Starting with the next release Peakboard is supporting new screen transitions and control animation effects. With a couple of basis operations the users are able to create stunning custom control animations.

The video gives you a first impression of the new Peakboard screen and control animations:

The basic animation operations are:

Offset
Opacity
Fade In
Fade Out
Scale
Rotate
Wait

The users may combine different types of operations parallel at the same time and wait for completion using the Wait operation. For each operation it’s possible to define the easing type, the duration and delay time.

The screenshot below shows a somewhat more complex custom animation of the QR code (see video).

The screen transitions are currently pre-defined and no custom transitions are allowed.

For further information please see the help site of Peakboard.com.

That’s it.

If you have questions feel free to contact me.

Links:

Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)
OPC Foundation
OPC Unified Architecture Wikipedia

How to use the Peakboard Log-View in Preview mode

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0200

A couple of days ago I have written an article for the Peakboard.com blog that shows the usage of the new Log-View Panel feature available to Peakboard visualizations Preview mode. The Preview feature is only usable on Windows 10 machines. The log panel in combination with the Lua Scripting allows user to log certain values or events during the process of creating visualizations with the Peakboard Designer application.

For further details you may check out the video I’ve made for the article (Einsatz des Log-Views im Preview-Modus) to see the usage.

Peakboard allows to easily and efficiently visualize complex data and processes in real-time, used as digital in-house communications or for displays in production, logistics, administration and Point-of-Sale.

Links:

Einsatz des Log-Views im Preview-Modus (German)
Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)

The OPC UA Data Source of the Peakboard Digital Signage System

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0100

A couple of days ago I finished the first development iteration of our brand new OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) data source for the Peakboard system. The OPC UA standard is a machine to machine communication protocol for industrial automation developed by the OPC Foundation.

The video gives you a first impression of the Peakboard OPC UA data source in action.

The current implementation of the OPC UA data source allows you to subscribe to OPC variables that are provided by the OPC server and it’s information model. It’s possible to use multiple OPC UA data sources in one Peakboard visualization and they may connect to different OPC servers.

The screenshot below shows the Peakboard Designer with an event list on the main screen.

The data source supports X509 certificates to make the communication with the servers secure. In order to use the secure protocol you first need to create an application instance certificate. You may create multiple custom certificates or upload existing certificates.

The screenshot below shows the data source dialog.

OPC methods can be selected as well. The metadata for each selected method are saved and can be used later on in Lua scripting. The script editor shows IntelliSense for the method metadata, so it will be very easy to call the methods from scripting.

The screenshot below shows the subscription dialog.

You may group a couple of OPC variables into one subscription group and execute for each of them one script. The next screenshot shows the new subscription item dialog.

The Browse button opens a new dialog to browse the information model (objects and variables) of the connected OPC server. If one of the variables got selected the dialog will apply the path, namespace URI and the identifier of variable.

The next screenshot shows the script editor with the Lua script for the Tapped event of the Call Start button of the main screen (see above). The method expects two input arguments, the start and end value for the State variable. The variable will be increased every second.

The defined subscription for the State variable will catch the event, execute the Lua script for the subscription event and displays the event data in the list. The overview shows the result have we clicked the button to start counting the State variable.

I haven’t had the time go into the details. This post gives you some impressions of the new OPC UA data source and it’s features. For further information please see the help site of Peakboard.com.

That’s it.

If you have questions feel free to contact me.

Links:

Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)
OPC Foundation
OPC Unified Architecture Wikipedia

The Photo Frame Control of the Peakboard Digital Signage System

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0100

A while ago I’ve developed a nice Photo Frame control for Peakboard. This control implements an image switcher using the widely known Ken Burns effect. The Ken Burns effect is a type of panning and zooming effect used most often in video production.

The video gives you an impression of the Peakboard Photo Frame in action.

You may define an arbitrary number of images to be displayed in the Photo Frame control. The image transition time must be defined in seconds. The default value is 10 seconds. The screenshot below shows the Peakboard Designer with one Photo Frame control on the main screen.

The next screenshot shows the control running in preview mode, but you may also watch the effect within the Designer application. Just click on the Watch Now button (see above).

That’s it.

If you have questions feel free to contact me.

Links:

Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)

The MQTT Data Source of the Digital Signage System

Sun, 21 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

A couple of months ago I finished work on the first of a series of specialized data sources that are used in an industrial environment. The MQTT data source implements the ISO standard 20922, a publish-subscribe-based messaging protocol. MQTT stands for Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, works on top of the TCP/IP protocol and is often used to communicate between IoT devices. Microsoft Azure IoT Hub uses MQTT as its main protocol for telemetry messages. It uses a small code footprint and perfectly fits in situations where the network bandwidth is limited.

The video gives you an impression of the Peakboard MQTT data source in action.

The data source allows to subscribe to an arbitrary number of topics. The subscriptions can be grouped and a script can be executed for each group of topics. You may use the MQTT data source as a kind API for the Peakboard visualization. The message itself can contain the parameters that are used within the Lua script to may do something in the current visualization. This opens up endless possibilities and is a fantastic way to communicate with the world outside.

The screenshot below shows the Peakboard Designer with the event list on the main screen and the data source dialog upfront.

The screenshot below shows the subscription adding dialog. The column QoS (Quality of Service) defines the degree of quality for the delivered messages.

The data source provides a Tester application for MQTT Broker (see next screenshot and the MQTT Tester button in the data source dialog). The tester application allows to subscribe and publish messages. This a pretty neat tool to test the Peakboard visualization quickly.

As shown in the screenshot below the data source also allows to publish messages to the MQTT broker via Lua script. This is quite easy. You just define the topic and the message you want to send. The script will be executed once you click on the Publish button on the main screen.

Final Peakboard visualization:

I haven’t had the time go into the details. This post gives you some impressions of the great and lightweight MQTT data source and it’s features. For further information please see the help site of Peakboard.com.

That’s it.

If you have questions feel free to contact me.

Links:

Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)
MQTT
MQTT Wikipedia

New features for Stock Quote Add-In for Excel 2016

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Today I implemented a couple of new features to the Stock Quote Add-In for Excel. You now can use an item reference notation to access all available JSON values. The screenshot below shows how to use the item reference notation to access all available data. Starting from the root object you are now able to access for instance the first figure data with financials/0/f_figures/0/annual. This notation returns the value as string. To return the value as number, prefix the path with !. The notation is case-sensitive.

Changes:

Added JSON.NET parser to parse stock data more flexible
Added Ticker Data dialog to see JSON raw data
Added item reference notation to address all available data

Check out GitHub for more details!

Download

Download from GitHub - Stock Quote Add-In For Excel 2018 R2

Links

Stock Quote Add-In Info Page

Screenshot

German Edition of Excel 2016

New Stock Quote Add-In for Excel 2016 and 2013 using the Google Finance API

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100

I have updated the popular Stock Quote Add-In For Excel to now support the Google Finance API. The old Stock Quote add-in was using the Yahoo Finance service to retrieve the stock quotes. The service has been terminated by Yahoo on 11/01/2017.

Click below the link ‘Stock Quote Add-In Info Page’ for usage instructions.

Download

Download from GitHub

Links

Stock Quote Add-In Info Page

Screenshot

German Edition of Excel 2016

The new Retro Flipper Block control for Peakboard

Fri, 22 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0100

A couple a days ago I’ve developed a new control called the Retro Flipper Block that emulates the old mechanical flip style number and letter displays, mainly found at airports or in old flip alarm clock radios. The control is inspired by a control developed for Silverlight. The block size must be defined for the text. The text can be easily changed by the Lua scripting model.

The video gives you an impression of the control in action.

The screenshot below shows the Peakboard Designer with the control on the main screen.

If you have questions feel free to contact me.

Links:

Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)

The new Live Tile Box control for Peakboard

Sun, 10 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Recently I have developed the new and fantastic Live Tile Box control for Peakboard. This control behaves similar to the Live Tiles you may know from the Windows start menu and perfectly fits the requirement to show more information on a single screen. Each box may contain an arbitrary number of tiles, that can be freely defined by using the new tile designer. The tile designer basically reuses the same features that are available for the screen designer on the main window.

The video gives you an impression of the Peakboard Live Tiles in action.

The screenshot below shows the Peakboard Designer with two Live Tile Box controls on the main screen. Do not care about the aweful tile designs I made. I’m just not a design guy!

The dialog window shows the tile designer for the live tile with name ‘Tile1’:

The next screenshot shows the options for the live tile transition effects. For each tile transition you may select a pre-defined effect or an effect category automatically selected by the control. Four categories of effects are currently available: Fade, Move, Bounce (with movement) and no effect of course.

The control allows for scripting with the Lua programming language and offers one event named TileChanged. This event is triggered once a tile is changing to the next tile (see screenshot). The sample board is counting the calls of the event and is changing a tile in the left Live Tile Box control with the name KachelBox1.

That’s it.

If you have questions feel free to contact me.

Links:

Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)

How to show animated Info Panels via Lua scripting in your Peakboard visualization

Sat, 18 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100

A couple of days ago I have written an article for the Peakboard.com blog that shows the usage of the new Info Panel feature available to Peakboard visualizations. Animated Info Panels are perfect to give feedback about runtime errors or other important changes within the board. The feature draws the attention to the board.

You may check out the video I’ve made for the article (Info-Panels mit Lua-Script dynamisch anzeigen) to see the animations possible.

Links:

Info-Panels mit Lua-Script dynamisch anzeigen (German)
Peakboard.com
Peakboard.com Help
Peakboard.com Blog
YouTube My Channel
YouTube Peakboard Channel (German)