Xibo

pdf with dynamic content - how to refresh ?

Asked by Mikael Kermorgant

Hello,

I use to show pdf with dynamic content (timesheet for students, php generated) on TVs.

I wonder if xibo would fit in regard to that dynamic aspect.

Each pdf would have to be downloaded every 10 minutes, converted to a series of images which would then be shown in sequence of 5 seconds each. Xibo would then have to take up the new images instead of the old ones.

Does that seem doable ?
If so, could you please give a hint of the direction to take ?

Best regards,

Mikael Kermorgant

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Alex Harrington (alexharrington) said : 		#1

Xibo doesn't have support for showing PDF files.

You'd need to write something yourself that takes your PDF, coverts it to JPEG images and puts them on a webserver somewhere.

You could then include those image files in Xibo using the webpage media type

Alex

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Mikael Kermorgant (mikael-kermorgant) said : 		#2

Thanks.

But if the content of those pdf change every 10 minutes, I will have to automate the conversion to jpeg via crontab.

Will Xibo load the new images instead of the old ones ?

And what if the length of the pdf change from 3 pages to 4. Will Xibo automatically load the 4th image ?

Best regards,

Mikael

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Alex Harrington (alexharrington) said : 		#3

Xibo will load the images in from your webserver in exactly the same way a web browser would - so if they change, they'll be updated.

If the number of images is likely to change, I would be looking at creating an RSS feed of images for Xibo to consume instead. You'll need to have <img> tags inside the Description field of your feed for Xibo to display the images.

Alex

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Mikael Kermorgant (mikael-kermorgant) said : 		#4

Thank you,

I've also read that pdf2swf could help convert it to a flash slideshow, so whith these 2 options, I guess we'll manage this problem.

Regards

Mikael

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Dan Garner (dangarner) said : 		#5

Generating a flash slideshow would be a much cleaner option in my opinion.

I have no idea what format the data is in, but in 1.3 series we have a new feature called DataSets (http://xibo.org.uk/2012/04/15/introducing-datasets/) which you could populate with your time sheet data from PHP - removing the PDF step.

Might be more elegant!