While the Photo app is a convenient way to cycle through several images, there are use cases where instead of playing a non-stop loop, your audience should be able to decide when it's time to switch to the next or the previous image.
In this tutorial, we will create a simple four photo carousel with the use of the Interactivity feature. If you don’t know how to use Interactivity, take a look at the following tutorials to better understand the topic:
When finished, this is the functionality we are aiming for:
Start by creating a Composition with two triangles as back and forth arrows for the background:
Create a Campaign with two screen regions. One for the background Composition and one for the images.
Place the background Composition in Timeline 1 and the first image in Timeline 2. We use the sample “Aquarium.jpg”. The other images do not go into the Timeline. They follow in the respective Triggers.
After saving the Campaign, open the Triggers and Interactivity menu.
Add the first Trigger to move to the next image when clicking on the arrow on the right. We use these settings:
Name: next 1
When: Touch Region > Custom Region > configure a region which generously covers the right arrow
Action: Play “Bales of Hay.jpg” in Region 2 for 30 seconds
Gear icon: Aspect Ratio > Keep Aspect Ration Without Resizing
Restrictions: Trigger only when Player is playing “Aquarium.jpg” in Region 2
Save the Trigger with the green verification mark.
Duplicate this Trigger three times for a total of four triggers going forward. Each Trigger's Action is to play the next image in the carousel. Each Trigger's Restriction is when the current image is playing. This is the scheme:
Trigger
Action
Restriction
next 1
Bales of Hay.jpg
Aquarium.jpg
next 2
City lights.jpg
Bales of Hay.jpg
next 3
Misty mountain.jpg
City lights.jpg
next 4
Aquarium.jpg
Misty mountain.jpg
Duplicate the first Trigger once, this time to go back. The Touch Region which stayed the same in the previous Triggers, now shifts to a region which generously covers the left arrow. This Trigger's Action is to play the previous image in the carousel, in this case “Misty mountain.jpg”. This Trigger's Restriction is when the present image “Aquarium.jpg” is playing.
To make use of the Touch Region for the left arrow, duplicate the latest Trigger again three times for a total of four triggers going backwards. Each Trigger's Action is to play the previous image in the carousel. Each Trigger's Restriction is when the current image is playing. This is the scheme:
Trigger
Action
Restriction
back 1
Misty mountain.jpg
Aquarium.jpg
back 2
City lights.jpg
Misty mountain.jpg
back 3
Bales of Hay.jpg
City lights.jpg
back 4
Aquarium.jpg
Bales of Hay.jpg
With eight Triggers for four images, our carousel is ready to be published.
Interactivity for OnSign Player App versions prior to 10.0.0
For player app versions before 10.0.0, you will have to use the legacy interactivity editor.
Get the images used for the Campaign shown above from this zip file, or use your own images.
Start with creating a Campaign.
A carousel slide consists of three basic elements: a central photo frame and two buttons to go back and forth on the pictures. Click on “Add Custom Layout” in your Campaign and create a zone for each of those three elements, as well as a zone for the background image.
Upload the images you are going to use in this Campaign to your OnSign account. In your Timeline, place the button images, the background image, and the first photo of the carousel, into their respective screen zones.
Don’t place more than one photo in the carousel frame, or else it won't obey the commands of the buttons we will set later and instead play a non-stop loop.
Save the Campaign. Open the Triggers and Interactivity menu, below the Campaign thumbnail.
Now, we add Interactivity to our carousel slider! Before setting any actions, decide on the carousel photo sequence. We have used the following sequence to the pictures available in the zip file: IAdea.png > J22.png > minix x5.png > minix x7.png > IAdea > J22 (...) etc.
For this sequence, we set an action to both buttons around each photo. It is important that one action only happens to a specific photo, so we need to apply filters to each action. Let’s first set the action for the next button when the "IAdea.png" photo is shown in the Campaign. Fill out the fields as follows:
Name: a name which indicates to you what is going to happen, here "image flip".
What: Touch region.
Which one: Region 4, which is the next button.
Action: Replace.
Destination: Region 2, which is the photo frame.
In the row below, we set a filter so it only changes to the next photo of the sequence (J22.png) when the specific photo is shown on screen. Here, only when “IAdea.png” is shown, the next button will change the image to “J22.png”.
When playing: IAdea.png
With Media: J22.png
Apply actions to all the following buttons with the right filters. This is going to be a little bit of effort, but it's worth it. Don't forget the back button!
Click on “Save” and when you are done publish the Campaign to your Player and test it out!
