Channels
10
Lessons
8
Videos
All
Skill Level
- Adding Content to your channel
- Discarding or Reverting Changes Made to a Channel
- Creating a New Channel
- Duplicating a Channel
- Changing Your Channel Layout
- Previewing a Channel
- Using the "Background Audio Zone" to Add Music
- Publishing Changes
- Fill Zone or Fit to Zone
- Play in Full Screen: Automatically Switch a Block of Content to a Single-Zone Layout
All about Channels
Once you have answered your Tailored Content Survey, a channel is pre-loaded with a loop of automatically updating content which can then be set to your screen.
The Channels tab allows you to choose between displaying your content in single or multiple zone layouts. You may also choose between a default Theme or color palette that determines the appearance of some Apps instances.
Adding Content to Your Channel
Go to the Channels tab and select whichever channel is currently running on your device.
This is where you can preview your content, or pick and choose which content you are playing as part of your service.
The Main Zone will show up immediately. You can select other zones from the screen diagram on the right-hand side, or you can select it from the dropdown menu on the top left.
By default, the channel is populated with content based on your Tailored Content Survey. Your automatically-updating content is stored in a series of Playlists which you can add to or remove from your channel.
To add content, click the “Add Content” button. In the new “Media Picker” window, select the type of content you would like to add from the tabs on the side: You can choose from automatically-updating Playlists, Media that you have uploaded on your own, Apps instances, and more.
When you are done choosing your new content, click the “Add” button to confirm your selection.
Any content items you add appear at the bottom of the loop by default. Since the channel plays sequentially, click-and-drag to rearrange the playlist. This prevents new content from playing in an uninterrupted block.
Individual items can be dayparted by clicking the schedule area.
To finalize your changes, click the “Publish” button. This will send your new content to your RidgeLogic device.
Discarding or Reverting Changes Made to a Channel
To remove content, simply hover over the item you wish to remove, and click the red garbage can icon that appears on the right-hand side.
You can discard changes made to your channel before they are published.
Click the dropdown arrow next to the “Publish” button.
Information about the last update made is shown in the dropdown menu.
Select “Discard Changes” to revert to the most recently published version of the channel.
Creating a New Channel
Creating the Channel
While in the Channels tab, click “New Channel.”
In the “Create a new channel” window, begin by naming your channel.
Hover over the channel icon, and click the pencil to assign a cover image or color to more easily identify it, then click the “Done” button.
Next, click on the “Continue” button and you’ll be prompted to choose your screen orientation for the channel. Please note, your channel will only play content in the orientation chosen.
Click “Create Channel” to finish creating your channel.
Filling the Channel with Content
Click the “Add Content” button.
In the new “Media Picker” window, you can select between Playlists, Media, Apps, and more from the tabs menu on the left. Once you’ve selected content to add to your channel, click on the “Add” button in the lower right-hand corner.
When you are finished setting up the content for your channel, click the “Publish” button.
Setting the Channel to Your Screen
You can now set the new channel to your screen.
Go to the Screens tab. Hover over the “Now Playing” section on the screen you would like to change, and click the blue “Set content” button that appears.
In the pop-up window, select your new channel, and click “Add.”
Duplicating a Channel
Starting in the Channels tab, hover over the channel you want to duplicate and click on the “duplicate” icon. In the dropdown menu, select “Duplicate.”
Once duplicated enter a name for the new channel.
Changing Your Channel Layout
We highly recommend duplicating any pre-configured channels before changing the layout of their zones.
Screen layouts can be selected to split your screen into multiple zones or revert to a single zone.
While viewing the channel builder, click the “Edit Layout” button in the sidebar and select the “All Layouts” tab.
You can now select from any of the available pre-set templates.
Select one, and then click the “Select” button to change your channel layout.
If the new layout has fewer zones than your current setup, you will lose your content queue in any zones that are being deleted as a result. Zone content will be automatically assigned to the corresponding zone number on the new layout.
Please Note: New layouts may include a background layer which is visible during content transitions. After editing your channel’s layout, delete any content in the background layer if there is one, by navigating to it in the dropdown menu at the top-left of the channel builder screen.
When you are done making your changes, press the “Publish” button in the top-right corner.
Previewing a Channel
Once you’ve set up your channel, you can select the “Preview” button in the top right to see how it displays live.
You can also access “Preview” while hovering over any of your channel icons in the Channels tab.
Please note: The preview feature only displays whichever content is scheduled to run now. If some of your content is scheduled for a week’s time, you won’t see it until then.
From the channel previewer, switch between your zones (only applicable if you’re using multiple zones) from the top-right dropdown menu, and use the right-hand list to select a preview for any piece of content from the channel.
You can also preview individual media items in the Media tab, or by clicking on their thumbnails in the channel builder.
Using the "Background Audio Zone" to Add Music
You can use a hidden zone in your channel builder to play music while displaying content to your digital screens called “Background Audio”.
To access it, click the “Background Audio” button on the right-hand sidebar.
To add content, click the “Add Content” button. In the new “Media Picker” window, select the type of content you would like to add.
This feature supports Media (.mp3) or Apps (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo).
Please note: Due to autoplay policy restrictions on web browsers, the sound might not play automatically while previewing your channel in the device portal, but it will play correctly on your screens.
Publishing Changes
Once you are done making changes to your channel, you can select the “Publish” button in the top-right hand corner to finalize and push the changes to your screen.
The button will turn grey once the content has gone live. Please note, once this happens, you can’t revert or discard the changes made (See: “Discarding or Reverting Changes Made to a Channel”). You’ll have to remove the changes made manually.
Fill Zone or Fit to Zone
You can adjust your zones to “Fill” or “Fit” images by using the “Fill Zone | Fit to Zone” dropdown at the top of the screen.
Fill Zone: Fills the entire zone with an image
Fit to Zone: Scales the image proportionally to fit within the zone’s dimensions.
In other words, Fill Zone will “zoom into” an image until it fills the zone, whereas Fit to Zone will shrink the image proportionally until it fits inside the zone.
Please note: This option only displays once you’ve added content to your channel.
Play in Full Screen: Automatically Switch a Block of Content to a Single-Zone Layout
If you have set up a multi-zone layout for your channels, you can use the “Play in Full Screen” feature to set individual content items to run full-screen.
This is useful if you would like to focus on a single piece of content in full-screen mode and then resume playing in multiple zones once it has ended.
Please note: This feature only works with any channel that is using a multi-zone channel layout on your screen.
Start in the Channels tab and select whichever channel is currently running on your device.
In the channel builder, click the schedule area on any piece of content to access the scheduling window. Toggle “Play in Full Screen” to on.
Click off the scheduling window to close it. The schedule area on the piece of content will now be highlighted with a light blue “Full Screen” logo.
You can turn this on for as many pieces of content as you would like.
You can see the “Play in Full Screen” feature in action by clicking the “Preview” button.