Help / Making content

Live content

Clock and weather, YouTube, web pages, countdowns, tickers, calendars and HTML5.

Live content is drawn or played by the TVs themselves, so it's always current: a clock that keeps time, a countdown to your opening, headlines scrolling along the bottom, today's classes from your calendar, a YouTube video or a web page. You make each one once in your library, then add it to any playlist like a picture or a video.

Make live content

1. Go to Media and open the Create menu.
2. Choose what to make: Clock & Weather Widget, Countdown, Ticker, Calendar, YouTube Video or Web Page.
3. Fill in its settings. The preview beside them shows what the TVs will show.
4. Press Add to Library. You'll see a confirmation like Front Desk Clock is in the library.
5. Add it to a playlist, as a whole slide or in one area of a slide with zones, and publish.

To change one later, open it in Media and press its Edit button. Changes reach the TVs when you publish the playlists that use it. Pixigns reminds you: Saved. Publish playlists using it to update the TVs.

Clocks, countdowns, tickers and calendars come in five colors: Violet, Midnight, Sunset, Forest and Light. Pick one under Colours.

The Create menu also has other things, each with its own guide:

• Menu Board: see Menu boards.
• Google Slides: see PDFs and Google Slides.
• Canva: see Canva.
• QR Code and Video from a Link: see Your media library.

Plans, and what needs the internet

On the Free plan, trying to make a clock, countdown, ticker, calendar or web page says Clocks, weather, countdowns, tickers, calendars and web pages come with the Basic plan. An owner can choose a plan in Settings, under Billing. See Plans and billing.

Clock and weather

Clock & Weather Widget shows any mix of the time, the date and the weather.

• Name in the library: how it's listed in Media.
• Title (optional): a line above, like Welcome. Up to 80 characters.
• Clock: the time, as 12-hour or 24-hour.
• Date: today's date.
• Time zone: your business's to begin with. Choose another to show the time somewhere else, say for a second office.
• Weather: search for a city or address, then pick the place from the list. Choose °F or °C.

The TVs keep the time by their own clocks, online or not. The weather needs the screen to be online and updates every 15 minutes. Places come from OpenStreetMap and the weather from MET Norway.

Countdown

A countdown shows the days, hours, minutes and seconds left until a moment, like an opening, a sale or New Year.

• Title (optional): what it's counting down to, like Grand opening. Up to 80 characters.
• Counts down to: the date and time, in your business's time zone.
• Then it says: what it shows once the time comes, like We're open!. Left empty, it says It's here!. Up to 80 characters.

The TVs count down by their own clocks, online or not.

Ticker

A ticker scrolls words from right to left. It's made for the bar along the bottom of a slide with zones, where it runs under your other content and across both TVs as one bar. It works as a whole slide or in the side panel too.

Under What it shows, choose:

• Your words: type one message per line, up to 20 lines of up to 200 characters each. They scroll one after another, online or not.
• A news feed: paste a News feed link (RSS or Atom). Pixigns reads it and says how many headlines it found, like Found 2 headlines. The screens read the feed every 15 minutes and keep its last headlines when they're offline.

Pick a Speed: Slow, Normal or Fast. Words of any size move at the same reading pace.

If Pixigns can't read the link, it says That link isn't a news feed. Check that you copied the feed's own link, not the news site's home page. If you're sure it's right, you can press Add Anyway. Only feeds on the public internet work, not ones inside your own network.

Calendar

A calendar shows today's events and the coming days', from a Google or Outlook calendar, in your business's time zone.

1. Get your calendar's address in iCal format:
   • Google Calendar: open the calendar's settings, go to Integrate calendar, and copy its public address or secret address in iCal format.
   • Outlook: publish the calendar and copy its ICS link.
2. Paste it in Calendar link (iCal). It must start with https:// or webcal://.
3. Pixigns reads it and tells you what it found, like Found 3 events still to come. If the calendar has nothing in the days you chose, it says The calendar works, but there's nothing on it for these days.
4. Add a Title (optional), like Today's classes.
5. Under Show, choose Today only, Today and tomorrow, The next 3 days, The next 7 days or The next 2 weeks.

The TVs show as many events as fit, grouped by day. Finished events drop off by themselves, and cancelled ones don't show. Repeating events work too. The screen reads the calendar every 15 minutes while it's online, and keeps showing what it last read when it's offline.

YouTube video

Play a YouTube video, or a live stream, on your TVs.

1. On YouTube, open the video and copy its link (Share, then Copy).
2. Paste it in YouTube link. Links like youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/… and youtube.com/live/… all work.
3. Check the Name in the library.
4. Tick Play its sound (from the first TV) if you want its sound. Otherwise it plays muted.

On the slide, set how long the video plays. If its playlist has background music, that keeps playing too, so you may want one or the other.

YouTube videos stream as they play, so the screen must be online. They play in YouTube's own player, which may show YouTube's branding. If a video can't play, because it was removed, made private or doesn't allow playing on other sites, or a live stream is over or hasn't started, the TVs show the video's picture instead of YouTube's error.

Web page

Show a page from the web, like your class timetable, tide times or a dashboard, live on the TVs.

1. Paste the page's address in Link to the page. It must start with https://.
2. Pixigns checks whether the site lets itself be shown inside other pages. You'll see either This site can be shown on the TVs. or a warning (see below).
3. Set Load it again every (minutes), from 1 to 1440 (a day). It starts at 10. This keeps a page that doesn't update itself current.
4. Set how long it shows on the slide when you add it to a playlist.

Good to know:

• The TVs show the page live, so the screen must be online. When it's offline, the slide is skipped, so the TVs never show a browser error.
• Pages that need you to sign in won't work.
• The page is sealed off: it can't reach the screen or your other content.

“This site doesn't allow itself to be shown inside other pages”

Some sites refuse to be shown inside another page. On the TVs they'd show an error instead. Pixigns warns you when you add one, and you can still press Add Anyway, say if you're about to change the site's settings. Pixigns checks again each time you publish. If a site still refuses, you're asked Publish anyway? with the pages it found. Choose Publish Anyway to go ahead, or cancel and take the page out first.

If it's your own site, its developer can allow it. Otherwise, look for another page with the same information.

HTML5 package

If you or a designer have built something in HTML, like an animation or an interactive board, you can play it on your TVs. Zip the folder with an index.html at its start and upload the .zip in Media, like any file.

• The zip can be up to 50 MB, with at most 5,000 files and 200 MB once it's unpacked.
• It's stored on the screen with your other files.
• It runs on the TVs in a sealed frame: it can load things from the internet, but can't reach the screen's settings or your other content.
• It doesn't play in the admin's preview, only on the TVs.

If Pixigns can't use the zip, it says why:

• The package needs an index.html, the page that opens first
• The package is encrypted: zip it again without a password.
• The package contains a link, which isn't allowed: replace shortcuts with the real files.
• The package uses a compression Pixigns can't read. Zip it with a standard tool
• The zip file is damaged: zip it again.

Live elements in your designs

On Basic and Premium, the design editor can put live elements on a design too: a clock, today's date, a QR code, the weather, a countdown, scrolling text and a calendar. Find them under Elements, in Live elements.